Last week Meta released its 10th “Global State of Small Business Report,” a survey of more than 22,000 small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) across 30 countries and territories. The latest report comprises data from a July survey and finds a post-pandemic world navigating shifting business challenges.

While the COVID-19 pandemic posed the most challenges for SMBs over the last several years, the latest report shows inflation, supply chain disruptions, and threats of recession to be among the top issues.

According to the report’s findings, 19% of small businesses remain closed globally (meaning they were not operational or engaging in any revenue-generating activities), with the highest closure rates in North Africa and the Middle East, where 33% of businesses remain closed—North America had the lowest closure rate, 18%. The overall results show a slight improvement over the March report, which showed 20% of SMBs closed globally.

While some business locations remain closed, many are touching base with their customers digitally: The report found that 51% of SMBs use digital tools to communicate directly with customers; 43% use digital tools to advertise; and 36% use them to sell goods and services. The report also broke down the data by demographic, showing SMBs owned by women to use digital tools at a higher rate and generate more sales than SMBs led by men. It also found that 70% of diverse-led SMBs in the United States have reported making some portion of sales digitally in the last 30 days, compared to 61% of nonminority SMBs.

With respect to female-led SMBs, closure rates are higher, but sales are better—23% of female-led SMBs reported business closures globally, compared with 18% of male-led SMBs; 67% of SMBs reported increased or unchanged sales, compared with 64% of male-led SMBs.

It was reported that U.S. minority-led SMB closures are down, but they’re still higher than other SMBs: Black-led SMBs were the most likely to report a business closure with 31%, a decrease of 10 percentage points from January 2022; 25% of Hispanic-led SMBs reported being closed, down 4 percentage points from the March report.

A reported 59% of SMBs globally said they expect to remain in business over the next six months, though 24% reported increasing their prices by 20% or more in the past six months. In terms of sales, 40% of SMBs globally reported their sales in the past 30 days to be higher than the same period last year, an increase from 29% in the January report. As the holidays approach, 25% of SMBs globally reported expecting to generate more than half of their revenue between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 of this year. On the downside, 30% of SMBs reported being uncertain about how long they could continue operating given the current conditions, a 4% increase since January’s data.

In terms of staffing, 24% of SMBs globally reported increasing numbers of staff in the past six months, a significant rise from a mid-pandemic 11% reported in January. Thirty-one percent reported plans to increase their number of workers over the next six months.

Inflation appears to be a rising problem for SMBs, with 45% globally reporting a cost increase for inputs and raw materials in the last six months, though only 23% in North America compared. More businesses are looking to reach international audiences, with 78% saying they’ve sold internationally in the past five years, are planning to, or are interested in selling abroad in the next six months.

Persistently, the most common challenges reported by businesses are lack of demand (30%) and cash-flow issues (25%), though the issues have fallen in prominence by 17 and 14 percentage points, respectively, from their peak in May 2020.

For the full report, click here.

Photo via Meta

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