Key findings:
- Switzerland’s SMEs have the highest average turnover, at $8.53 million, making Amazon’s revenue equivalent to 31,125 Swiss SMEs
- The US comes in 3rd place in the race to meet Amazon, with 120,709 SMEs equating to Amazon’s revenue
- Ireland is in 4th place, with 173,122 SMEs equaling Amazon’s turnover
- The UK is in 9th place, with an average SME turnover of $1.18 million
- In Spain, Amazon’s revenue is equivalent to that of 523,682 SMEs
Tech giant Amazon’s current yearly revenue sits at $265.468 billion, but how does the revenue of small businesses around the world compare to the tech giant’s fortune? Latona’s has analysed Eurostat and United States Census Bureau data to reveal how the revenue of small businesses compares to that of Amazon. You can view the full findings here.
Coming out on top is Switzerland, where the average turnover of a small to medium enterprise (SME) is an impressive $8.53 million. This puts Swiss SMEs far ahead of the competition in terms of revenue, as the second-highest average SME turnover is $3.74 million in Luxembourg. This means that it would take the combined turnover of over 31,000 Swiss SMEs to match Amazon’s, which currently stands at $265,468.
Ireland’s SMEs come in 4th place, surpassing the UK’s by quite a margin, with the UK coming in 9th place. Ireland’s average SME turnover is at $1.53 million while the UK’s is $1.18 million. While this is an impressive achievement for Ireland’s business sector, it still puts them way behind Amazon’s gigantic turnover, which is equivalent to 173,122 Irish SMEs and 224,055 UK SMEs.
The US is inching slightly closer to Amazon’s turnover, with an average SME turnover of $2.20 million putting them in 3rd place in the race to meet Amazon. However, the race is clearly more of a marathon than a sprint as it would still take the combined turnover of 120,709 US SMEs to match Amazon’s turnover.
Coming in sixth place is Germany, home to a number of huge car companies with the likes of Mercedes, BMW and Audi generating a lot of money for the country’s economy. However, Germany’s SME’s still have a long way to go to compare to the tech giant, Amazon. In fact, it would take 196,942 SMEs combined turnover to equal that of Amazon, with the turnover of one SME in Germany averaging at $1.35 million per annum.
Just making it into the top 10 is Norway whose SME’s average annual turnover sits at $1.17 million, over seven times less than that of Switzerland’s SME’s. Amazon’s huge yearly turnover is equal to 227,211 SMEs in Norway.
Rick Latona, Director of Latona’s, comments: “Our research shows the huge scale of Amazon’s wealth in comparison to SMEs around the world but it also shows that both in Europe and the US there are millions of small businesses thriving, and expanding.
It’s great to see smaller countries like Belgium and tech-forward Estonia making it in the top 20. It just goes to show that innovation and hard work are the cornerstones of a successful business.’