Preliminary Report of the 2020 Basic Survey on Small and Medium Enterprises (Performance Results Based on the FY2019 Closing Accounts) Compiled

1. Outline of the Basic Survey on Small and Medium Enterprises

SMEA has been conducting the Basic Survey on Small and Medium Enterprises every year as a cross-industrial survey in order to ascertain the financial and operational situation of SMEs. The 2020 survey was the 17^th annual survey.

The survey covers approximately 113,000 SMEs randomly selected from 11 industries, namely construction; manufacturing; information and communications; transport and postal services; wholesale trade; retail trade; real estate and goods rental and leasing; scientific research, professional and technical services; accommodations, eating and drinking services; living-related and personal services and amusement services; and services (not elsewhere classified).

This report is based on valid responses from 46,397 companies (valid response rate: 41.1%).

2. Key points in the report

• Total sales per enterprise were 176 million yen, down by 2.1% from the previous year, and total ordinary profits per enterprise were 7.22 million yen, down by 4.0% from the previous year.

• Added value per incorporated enterprise was 87 million yen, down by 1.5% from the previous year.

• The number of employees per incorporated enterprise was 16.1, down by 2.9% from the previous year, while that per individual business operator was 2.6, up by 0.4% from the previous year.

• The percentage of incorporated enterprises that have conducted business investment was 21.2%, down by 1.3 percentage points from the previous year. The percentage of incorporated enterprises that have concluded a new leasing contract was 14.6%, up by 1.6 percentage points from the previous year.

• Looking at data on presidents (independent business operators), those in their 70s accounted for the largest share of all presidents (29.3%), while those who have occupied their office for over 30 years accounted for the largest portion (33.5%).

For the details of the 2020 survey results, see the Appendix.

Related material

• Appendix: Overview of Preliminary Report of the 2020 Basic Survey on Small and Medium Enterprises (in Japanese) (PDF:496KB)

Division in Charge

Research Office, Business Environment Department, Small and Medium Enterprise Agency