Small and Medium Enterprise AgencySummary of 2012 Basic Survey on Small and Medium Enterprises (Preliminary Report)

• A cross-industry survey to collect financial and management information of small and medium enterprises
• Small and medium enterprises from the following eleven industries participated in the survey: construction; manufacturing; information and communications; freight and postal; wholesale; retail; real-estate and goods leasing; academic research, specialized services, and technical services; accommodation and food services; living-related and personal services, and entertainment; and other services (n.e.c.).
• The survey method used was a sampling survey in which about 110,000 small and medium enterprises (target enterprises) were chosen at random from the target population of businesses and enterprises registered on the database.
• Survey results have been estimated from the 57,111 valid responses (valid response rate was 50.0%).

• For details of the results, see the Appendix.(PDF:483KB) (in Japanese)

• A total of 30.26 million people were employed by small and medium enterprises, which together have total sales of 509 trillion yen and ordinary profits of 16.0901 trillion yen. A year-on-year comparison shows that the number of employees decreased by 1.7%, and sales decreased by 0.9%, while ordinary profits rose by 13.2%.
• The number of employees increased in other services, up by 15.9% from the previous year, in manufacturing, up by 0.7% from the previous year, in accommodation and food services, an increase by 0.4% from the previous year, and in information and communications, up by 0.3% from the previous year.
• Ordinary profit margins of incorporated enterprises increased by 2.35%, showing continued improvement from the previous year's survey results.
• The ratio of incorporated enterprises that have subsidiaries, affiliated companies or business establishments overseas was 0.9%, a decrease by 0.1 percentage points compared to the previous year's survey results.
• The ratio of incorporated enterprises that conduct research and development of new products or new technology was 2.0%, a decrease from the previous year, and 2.2% of such enterprises took advantage of the R&D Promotion Tax System of Small and Medium Enterprises, showing an increase from the previous year.
• The ratio of incorporated enterprises that possess patents, utility model rights, or design rights was 2.8%, remaining flat from the previous year.

March 27, 2013

Research Office, Policy Planning Division, Business Environment Department, Small and Medium Enterprise Agency, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry