Nearly half of SMEs 'use smartphones'

06/09/2010

Nearly half (48 per cent) of the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK use smartphones for business reasons, a new survey has revealed.

Small firms use smartphones for email or to use the internet for business and another nine per cent plan to embrace the mobile technology this year, according to the Quarterly Survey of Small Business in Britain.

SMEs that were particularly entrepreneurial were driving the uptake, with 65 per cent of these firms adopting use of smartphones, the survey by Open University Business School, Barclays and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants found.

"Businesses are motivated by the ease, decreasing costs and the exceptional increase in power we’re seeing in handsets," said Steve Cooper, managing director of Barclays Business.

"We’ve reached a point where smartphones are running many of the applications that once needed a decently powered laptop. Businesses can log on, make payments, send through an invoice, do their word-processing and catch up on emails - while standing at a patisserie in Lille."

Recently, the Environment Agency urged energy-savvy SMEs to sign up to the Carbon Reduction Commitment scheme before the deadline in four weeks' time.

Posted by Dan Morris