Increasingly digitized but cautious in the face of the challenge of online commerce. Istat frames the technological growth of Italian SMEs, noting a strong growth in the use of digital equipment and at the same time a certain reluctance to enter the online market. According to data published by the Italian National Institute of Statistics, in 2021 60.3% of Italian small and medium-sized enterprises reached at least a basic level of digital intensity (56% the EU-27 average). The 2030 European target is 90%. Among enterprises with at least 10 employees, 41.9% bought cloud computing services of medium-high level and 51.9% of intermediate and sophisticated level (35% the EU-27 average, 75% the European 2030 target).
The indicators of the Digital Economy Society Index for SMEs that sell online improve very slowly: only 17.9% sold online in 2020, with a growth of 2 percentage points over 2019. And among these, 18.9% of companies with at least 10 employees have started or increased online commerce with the arrival of the pandemic. Increasing companies that use at least two social media (from 22% to 27%). In the use of intelligent devices and systems controlled via the Internet (IoT) Italian companies with at least 10 employees are eighth in Europe.