Market
There are 5.7 million Small Business owners in the UK, 3.4 million of which consist of sole proprietorships (source: FSB). Extend this to the rest of the EU and you're looking at 23 million SMEs (source: European Commission), where 93% are made up of less than 10 people in the team. These are the size companies which fit right in with SmartTrade App's target audience, and who more often than not are looking for payment providers and business apps tailored to small, dynamic businesses. In a recent survey as many as 44% of SMEs across the nation believe they are not losing out on any revenue by not accepting card payments (source: SmartTrade App).
Within these SMEs SmartTrade App targets three types of merchant opportunity;
Sole Traders - also called ‘micro merchants’ examples of these are plumbers, electricians, beauticians, drivers and freelancers.
Small Businesses - three man teams and up who look to grow their businesses. Examples are trade service companies, repair companies, software development, mobile service companies such as white good repair companies, driving instructors, property maintenance, electrical engineers, estate agents and private drivers.
Enterprise - these are companies with lots of merchants working with a service they provide such as Banks, Loans companies, Job lead providers, or Telecoms companies.
National and international Bank and Merchant organisations (such as Quotatis) are looking for mobile payment and SME solutions for their customers and SmartTrade has proven the concept and are in the perfect time to strike and disrupt the market.
SmartTrade App is seeing strong growth in one of its main Key Performance Indicators namely Debit and Credit cards processed through the app and online Web Dashboard, we see month on month steady growth with a total €9.2 million in cards processed through the app to date and €6 million+ in the last 18 months;
January to May 2018 showing the most significant consistent upward trend ever. From £180k January, to ~£400k in May.
Small businesses are looking for Mobile Point of Sale (mPOS) devices that plug into their smartphones to take customer card payments and Invoicing software to operate on the move all over the world. SmartTrade App is a software only version of an mPOS device, and these devices are being sought out by SMEs to grow their businesses. SmartTrade App offers much more than a 'virtual mPOS device' in an app, but mPOS market analysis is highly relevant.
Smartphone hardware mPOS shipments are expected to keep growing in the next years at a CAGR of 40% between 2013 and 2018, leading to 52.1 million mPOS units to be shipped in 2018 (which equates to roughly half the total number of POS devices to be shipped). The US market has been driven by Square, the company that made the hardware mPOS business take off. (Source: Smart Insights 2014 mPOS report).
SmartTrade App is just an App and does not have to ship hardware and has an immediate advantage of mPOS terminals in activating merchants. The speed and cost of distribution being reduced to zero. As a societal movement software always replaces hardware over time. ‘Software eats the world’ Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape and VC Andreessen Horowitz.
The European hardware mPOS market is anticipated to grow at 68% CAGR over 2013-2018. Thanks to the dynamic of the region and the size of the Chinese market will have the fastest growth throughout 2013-2018. In the mid-term, mPOS solutions will become viable solutions for merchants willing to completely replace their traditional POS terminal solutions (older standalone card reader devices).
Twenty-five smartphone hardware mPOS solutions are currently live across Europe and several key banks have started mPOS pilots with 30 implementation projects set to launch a new Chip and PIN compliant program by autumn this year; the most recent being Barclaycard in the UK. Caroline Drolet, Head of Mobile Point-of- Sale at Visa Europe said: “Small businesses have been traditionally reluctant to embrace card payments but across Europe that is changing. mPOS is the catalyst for that – it’s a solution that dispels many of the convictions previously held and genuinely works for small businesses, if they are accepting payments at their premises, or on the go. As these firms get to grips with the benefits and usability of mPOS we are going to see adoption rise.”
Versus the smartphone mPOS devices SmartTrade App is ahead of the market and has a much more compelling feature set for smaller growing business including team job and sales management, paperless quotes, invoice and receipts and accounting software integration.
“SmartTrade App is five years ahead of the competition.”
Stephen Hart, ex-CFO, Worldpay (UKs largest card processor £3bill FTSE / 52% of UK market)
The most attractive countries to SmartTrade would be those combining the highest GDP with the highest m-commerce CAGR therefore our Partner opportunities lie in these countries - USA / Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands and Australia/ NZ. Growth in Emerging markets will be undertaken on an opportunistic basis.
SmartTrade App plans to enter new two international markets with reseller or white label partners in 2018/19 and has been in dialogue with several foreign banks.
Alongside mPOS there is a growing adoption of Apps and cloud based software to run the small business. Once software like SmartTrade App would have been restricted to larger corporates paying top dollar for bespoke applications. The open source movement, cheap iPhone, Android and cheaper computing (real and virtual) coming together changed all of that. Apps are now ubiquitous for consumers and small business owners.
“Today’s reality is that technology solutions delivering capabilities on par with the largest enterprise are affordable for even the smallest of businesses,” says Steven Ostrowski of CompTIA, the global trade association for the IT industry. (Source: CompTIA Telegraph Business)
And a study by SAP found that “SMEs that have embraced digital technology show faster growth than companies that have not.” (Source: SAP, Telegraph Business)
SmartTrade App provides a complete payments to paperwork app for the small business owner. “Active participation in the digital economy will be essential to survival in the next three to five years.” (Source: SAP, Telegraph Business).
Market Size Summary
* In the UK alone est. £100 billion+ UK Trades Industry, including UK Plumbing £17 billion alone
* 5.7 Million SMEs in UK, 23 mill in EU, 30 mill in US
* Target SMEs turning over up to 50k pm with 3 employees or more
Fragmented product market
* Out of date card reader hardware market and perceived as expensive by merchants
* Multiple software products needed to run growing mobile company
* Merchants currently need to pass due diligence to get card reader
Key Trends Summary
* Apps are used daily by SMEs
* MPOS Card readers Compound Annual Growth Rate 30-50% pa
* iZettle sold to PayPal for $2.2bn
* Societal shift to digital money e.g. Apple Pay and Contactless (max £30)
