New research by Onecom, said to be the U.K. largest independent telecom services provider, suggests that small businesses spend £2,052 ($2503) a year on telecommunication services, an increase of as much as 40 percent since 2016. Other studies also suggest U.K. SME spending has grown.
The OneCom research is based on a survey of 208 employees, self-employed individuals and small business owners. Ofcom data suggests the typical U.K. household spends £1046 ($1276) annually on communications, so the Onecom data undoubtedly reflects data from small businesses only.
Analysts differ on the definition of “medium-sized” business, but it seems self evident that a firm spending about twice what a consumer household does is not a mid-sized firm.
Some 75 percent of respondents are also considering upgrading services, lead by interest in 5G and faster internet access.
Other studies of U.S. information technology spending suggest that most business spending on communications these days is for mobile phones and communications service, representing as much as 87 percent of total communications spending.
“Telecommunications spending (business) is forecast to be $1.5 trillion this year (2018),” IDC has said. “Mobile phones will be the largest segment of technology spending at nearly $500 billion in 2018, followed by mobile data and mobile voice at more than $400 billion each.”
Spending patterns for small business likely diverge a bit from that pattern, with fixed services representing a higher proportion of total communications spending. Very-small business spending also is skewed more heavily towards hardware and devices, compared to larger businesses.
By some estimates, communications generally represented about 30 percent of U.S. business spending on information technology in 2016. Globally, telecom spending averaged about 41 percent of total IT spend in 2016.
No comments:
Post a Comment