The following data is based on ABS figures reported for June 30th 2018.
The purpose of this article is to provide a summary context for the big picture of business in Australia. Investors and founders can use this data to quickly check if market analyses, growth claims and similar business plan elements make sense.
2,313,291 actively trading businesses in Australia at June 2018 comprising 807,064 (37.6%) Companies, 629,388 (27.2%) Sole Proprietors, 556,251 (24.1%) Trusts and 257,213 (11.1%) Partnerships with the rest being Public Sector organisations.
15.8% (365,500) of those businesses started in that year and 12.5% (289,161) left the market in that year.
Of all those businesses 877,744 (37.9%) were Employing businesses and 1,435,547 (62.1%) were Non-employing businesses.71.5 % of all Employing businesses had fewer than 5 employees, 22.29% had 5 to 19 employees and less than 0.5% employed 200 people or more.
There were 572,826 businesses operating with a turnover less than $50k, 792,373 businesses in the $50k to $200k turnover range, 787,685 in the $200k to $2m range, 92,126 earning $2m to $5m in turnover, 32,483 reaching $5m to $10m and 35,798 businesses in the $10m+ range.
Only 51.8% of businesses started in 2014-15 with turnovers under $200k survived to June 2018. The overall survival rate for businesses started in FY15 was 54.1% at June 2018.