What is SME? | SME Full Form | SME Term

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are businesses whose personnel and revenue numbers fall below certain limits. The abbreviation “SME” is used by many national agencies and international organizations such as the World Bank, the OECD, European Union, the United Nations, and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
In any given national economy, SMEs outnumber large companies by a wide margin and also employ many more people.
On a global scale, SMEs make up 90% of all companies and more than 50% of all employment. For example, in the EU, 99% of all businesses are SMEs. Australian SMEs makeup 98% of all Australian businesses, produce one-third of the total GDP (gross domestic product) and employ 4.7 million people. In Chile, in the commercial year 2014, 98.5% of the firms were classified as SMEs. In Tunisia, the self-employed workers alone account for about 28% of the total non-farm employment, and firms with fewer than 100 employees account for about 62% of total employment. United States’ SMEs generate half of all U.S. jobs, but only 40% of GDP.
Developing countries tend to have a larger share of small and medium-sized enterprises. SMEs are also responsible for driving innovation and competition in many economic sectors. Although they create more new jobs than large firms, SMEs also suffer the majority of job destruction/contraction.
According to the World Bank Group’s 2021 FINDEX database, there is a $1.7 trillion funding gap for formal, women-owned micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. Additionally, over 68% of small women-owned firms lack access to finance.