Between 2020-2022, 42.5% of enterprises developed some form of innovation activity, compared with 44.7% between 2020-2022, 48.0% between 2018-2020, and 32.4% between 2016-2018. By type of innovation, 24.3% of enterprises introduced product innovation (goods or services) and 37.6% introduced process innovation (22.6% and 40.4%, in the same order, in the 2020-2022 period).
The incidence of innovation varies significantly with enterprise size: 78.7% of enterprises with 250 or more persons employed were innovative, while in the 10 to 249 persons employed breakdown, the percentage of enterprises with innovation activities was 41.7%. By economic activity, the Information and communication sector (68.9%) had the highest proportion of innovative enterprises, followed by Financial services (59.7%), Distributive trade (45.4%) and Manufacturing and energy (45.1%).
In the same period, 59.6% of innovative enterprises introduced innovations with environmental benefits obtained in the enterprise and/or during the consumption or use of the goods or services by the end user, of which 57.3% were innovations with environmental benefits obtained in the enterprise and 48.7% were innovations with benefits obtained during the consumption or use of the goods or services by the end user.
8.4% of enterprises were both innovative and cooperated with other enterprises or organizations in R&D or other innovation activities between 2022-2024.
In 2024, the total expenditure on innovation activities reached 4,865 million euros, 25.3% more than in 2022. This result represented around 1,0% of total turnover from enterprises (the same proportion in 2022).
14.9% of enterprises' turnover in 2024 resulted from the introduction of new or improved products (-0.3 p.p. compared to 2022), with 11.9% resulting from the introduction of new goods or services for the enterprise and 3.0% from the introduction of new goods or services for the market (10.8% and 4.4% in 2022, respectively).
Between 2022-2024, 62.6% of enterprises considered a strong focus on high-quality (quality leadership) to be of high importance as a strategy for their economic performance.
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