Hong Kong small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are gradually adopting mobile commerce in their daily business operations, reveals a survey jointly conducted by the Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC) and the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, HKSAR Government.

Wendy Wong, principal consultant (Strategic Information & Intelligence) of HKPC, says, "While the application of mobile commerce is still not common among local businesses, local establishments adopting mobile facilities have been gradually increasing over the years. This survey has found that 7.6% of local establishments have adopted mobile facilities in their operations, as compared to only 1.0% in 2001, and 5.3% in 2004."

Wong notes that majority of the mobile commerce users in the country were from the trading (55.4%) and service (32.1%) sectors. In addition, manufacturing establishments have become more receptive to mobile commerce, accounting for 5.0% of the mobile commerce users as compared to 2.7% in 2004.

"There are marked increases on establishments who adopted more advanced applications (25%) as compared to our previous survey in 2004. It reflects that local companies are expanding the scope of mobile commerce applications as they realize the gain in efficiency in their daily business operations," she adds.

On the key benefits in adopting mobile commerce, 'increased work efficiency', 'enhanced customer service quality' and 'enhanced communication between onsite staff and the company' were cited by SMEs.
For those who have not yet employed wireless technology in their business operations, some changes in the reasons quoted were noted. "Comparing this survey's findings with the 2004 survey on the reasons for non-adoption, we found that the number of companies who quoted 'not required by partners' or 'not required by existing customers' has significantly decreased, while those which cited 'high investment cost' and 'lack of appropriate solutions/services’ have surged,” remarks Wong.

Wireless services and technology providers are urged to address SMEs' concerns over the costs involved and their need for custom-made solutions to enhance the adoption of mobile commerce among local companies," says Wong.

Another survey conducted during the same period, the “Survey on eBusiness Adoption in Hong Kong’ has revealed that local SMEs are also adopting higher levels of eBusiness.

Commenting on these latest findings, Wong says, "It is encouraging to see that the percentage of companies adopting higher levels of eBusiness ('Prospecting', 'Business Integration' and 'Business Transformation' levels) has increased to 24.2%, compared to 20.5% in the last survey in December 2004. The increase was mainly recorded in the 'Prospecting' group (up from 11.7% to 16.2%) who have their own web pages to provide company information and use e-mail for communication."

"A point to note is that companies using e-mail communications only have decreased from 35.2% to 30.4%. It indicates that more companies have moved up to higher levels of eBusiness adoption realizing the efficiency of using the Internet," says Wong.

The survey also found that the shift from using dial-up to broadband continues for faster connection to the Internet, with over 90% of the establishments using broadband connections.
In addition, companies are now more aware of the importance of providing timely information through e-channels, with 50.3% of the establishments updating the content of their company websites within one month. In terms of content, a majority of the establishments post 'company information' (99.7%) and 'product/services catalogues' (96.2%), as well as provide 'online enquiry services' (77.1%) on the web. The surge in the provision of 'online customer support services' to 25.8% (from 6.5% in the last survey) reflects that companies are keen to shorten their response time with the help of the Internet for enhanced customer service.

Of the key benefits experienced in adopting eBusiness, 'building up the company’s image', 'offering a new sales channel', 'opening up to the world market' and 'enhancing work efficiency' were cited by SMEs.

On the flip side of the coin, the survey found that 43.5% of SMEs in Hong Kong do not have any form of e-adoption, with the majority of them (98.3%) citing 'no business need' as the main reason for not adopting eBusiness.

Both these surveys are conducted annually to study the deployment of mobile commerce and e-commerce adoption by the Hong Kong business sector. This time around, 97.7% of the establishments surveyed were SMEs, with a total of 2,008 local establishments having been interviewed by telephone from July to December 2005.