Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (April 26): Eight in 10 Malaysian small businesses earned revenue from online sales and 62.5% received more than 10% of their sales through digital payment options such as GrabPay, Alipay and iPay88, according to findings of CPA Australia’s Asia-Pacific Small Business Survey 2021-2022.

This reflects the tech-savvy nature of many Malaysian small businesses, CPA Australia noted in a statement on Monday (April 25).  

It added that one in four Malaysian small businesses surveyed is planning to introduce a new product, process or service to the country, or indeed the world, this year.

CPA Australia’s Malaysian digital transformation committee chairman Bryan Chung FCPA (Aust.) said the findings on Malaysia’s innovative culture are encouraging when compared to small businesses in Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan.

He added that business owners are now motivated to “pursue technological innovations for long-term growth as opposed to short-term survival”. 

“The findings are indicative of a new generation of entrepreneurs who are tech-savvy, innovative and eager to promote what their business has to offer, both to the region and the world. Malaysian respondents are typically younger with 55.9% under 40, compared with the survey average of 45.2%.

“The focus on technology is reflected in cybersecurity preparedness, with 40.1% of local small businesses reviewing their cybersecurity measures in the past six months, while 38.5% expect their business will be cyber-attacked in 2022,” he said.

Given the impact of Covid-19, it’s not surprising that of those that sought external finance in 2021, close to 55% sought it for business survival and nearly half found that accessing finance was challenging, shared CPA Australia in its statement. 

“Malaysia is also the only market where businesses found it more difficult than easy to pay their debts in 2021. These solvency problems are expected to continue this year with Malaysian small businesses again more likely to expect difficulty repaying debt than easy repayment conditions,” it said. 

“Despite facing a difficult 2021, during which Malaysia’s small businesses were more likely to report that they shrank than grew, most are bullish about their expected performance this year. Just over 66% of businesses expect to grow, which is higher than the survey average of 61.9%,” it added.

The survey is CPA Australia’s 13th annual survey of small business issues and sentiment across 11 Asia-Pacific markets. 

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