Covid-19 prompts spurt in new, small businesses like no other crisis

Boom in cellphone use, digital platforms seen as cost-efficient way to reach consumers; exit of some players has prompted others to enter market

Kelly Ng

Published Thu, Dec 3, 2020 · 09:50 PM

ACRA

Singapore

THE Covid-19 crisis has thrown Singapore into its worst recession since independence. But it has also ignited the biggest spark of small business formation in crisis times.

The Business Times found that the Republic has seen a mushrooming number of businesses formed over the past five months - since emerging from the partial lockdown in June - and across the year.

Critically, this upward trend is unlike past crises, such as the Global Financial Crisis in 2008/09 and the Asian Financial Crisis a decade before that. In both times, the pace of business formations weakened.

There was a gradua…