Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Members of the committee, députés et députées, thank you for having me here today.
As this is our first time appearing before the trade committee, I'd like to take a few moments to tell you about Google Canada.
In 2002 Google Canada opened our first doors in Toronto, which makes it one of our first international offices. After a decade of growth, we now have more than 600 Googlers working across four offices, including in Toronto, Kitchener-Waterloo, Montreal, and right here in Ottawa.
This group of Googlers has accomplished a lot, from mapping several areas in Canada's Arctic and in the Houses of Parliament just across the street, to putting our Canadian engineering talents to work on core products used by hundreds of millions of Google customers around the world. Google continues to grow and invest locally in Canada because we appreciate the market, we appreciate the individuals, and we appreciate the educational opportunities for engineers and others that become Googlers.
We are very pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this study and to discuss with you how the Internet is a driver of growth and opportunity for small businesses, both here in Canada and around the world. When Larry Page and Sergey Brin started Google, their mission was to organize the world's information in a universal and accessible way. That's how the Google search engine was born. Fast-forward to today and Google has truly become a growth engine creating opportunities for entrepreneurs, creators, and businesses of all shapes and sizes to reach beyond their traditional borders and into markets around the world. It turns out that the web is a great equalizer for small businesses. Anyone can succeed online from anywhere in the country. lt's all about the strength of your idea and the quality of your product. It turns out that the Internet is the ultimate equal opportunity marketplace.
Digital tools built for billions of users—including email, maps, collaborative documents, easily expanded cloud storage, highly refined search results, and immediately relevant marketing resources—have meant that scaling up your business to go global has never been easier or cheaper.
We know, as economic policy experts and as tech policy experts, that digital leaders outperform their competitors in every industry. Today every business is a digital business and every business can be a global business.
As we often do at Google, let's look at the numbers. There are 2.5 billion people who are part of the global online marketplace. That number is set to double in the next few years—and that's across the sectors that have been identified by the government and economists as high growth sectors. By 2018 the number of cross-border shoppers online is expected to triple. ln six major markets, including the U .S. and China, this amounts to 130 million users spending more than $300 billion annually.
Canada already has a lot of the right ingredients when it comes to SMBs embracing the opportunities of the web. Canadians have some of the highest rates of Internet usage and smart phone ownership in the world. We know the tools, we know the devices, and we use them as consumers almost all the way through the day. Our business community is trusted and credible the world over. We produce products and services that are fiercely in demand in both established and emerging markets. Interestingly Canada is the world's third-largest exporter of content on YouTube and 90% of the views for this content created by Canadians come from outside Canada, which is higher than any other country. We also have the benefit of an amazing array of cultural diversity, which is a natural advantage in growing our presence in international markets.
There are some Canadian SMBs who are ahead of the curve on this. Manitobah Mukluks, for example, makes traditional mukluks and moccasins with techniques used by Canada's first peoples. ln 2012, after 15 years of selling exclusively in Canada, they sought to expand to an international audience. This meant launching an e-commerce site using Shopify's online retail platform and experimenting with online marketing, like Google AdWords. Today Manitobah Mukluks sells to over 45 countries through their online store and over one-third of their website visits come from outside Canada.
Broadly speaking, Canada still has some work to do. Fewer than half of small businesses have a website at all. This is despite the fact that nearly all Canadians use the Internet before they buy, but then only 3% of retail purchasing takes place online. We can discuss the factors for that later on. Consider that fewer than 5% of Canadian SMBs are exporting, yet we know that exporters do better. They have substantially higher productivity and more revenue per employee.
To help Canadian businesses to better understand and to take advantage of their export opportunities, we at Google Canada recently launched an online destination to help SMBs grow beyond their borders. On this site we've included an export business map with specific insights on international customer preferences, holiday seasons, and shopping trends for SMB owners and managers. For example, if you design leather goods, maybe it's good to know that in China handbags and luggage are a significant online retail product category, or that kids go back to school in South Korea in March, not September. These moments and insights matter, and we hope they will help Canadian SMBs lay a road map to grow their businesses.
These new export-focused resources are added to a host of other Google tools, services, and initiatives designed to help SMBs grow into and succeed in the digital age. Globally, our Google for Entrepreneurs program builds capacity through partnerships with organizations who have strong ties to the local start-up and entrepreneur communities on the ground. In Canada, we work with Communitech in Kitchener—Waterloo and Notman House in Montreal to hold events and provide training for small businesses.
To recognize small businesses that have used the web to succeed, we created the Google eTown Awards, which are designed to showcase communities that are leading the way by using online tools and services.
As I mentioned to Mr. Morin, the municipality of Saint-Sauveur won that prize in 2013 for its focus on digital advertising.
Last October, we launched Retail Spark with the Retail Council of Canada and Shopify to help over 700 Canadian small and independent retailers go online.
Our message to the committee today is simple. The single most important thing you can do to help Canadian small and medium-sized businesses compete globally is to get them online quickly. The Bank of Canada recently forecast that our economy is expected to grow less than 2% this year. Meanwhile, the global digital economy is growing at more than 10% a year—and in emerging markets, it's growing at 12% to even 25% a year.
We know that every $100 million in export revenue generates approximately a thousand jobs. That's our potential. My commitment to you is that Google will continue to be a partner in powering that growth, and together, we'll unlock the extraordinary potential of Canada's economic future.
I would like to thank the committee once more for giving us the opportunity to take part in this important study.
That concludes my remarks.