Between 2022-2024, 42.5% of enterprises in Portugal carried out innovation activities (44.7% between 2020 and 2022, 48.0% between 2018 and 2020, and 32.4% between 2016 and 2018). Enterprises with 250 or more persons employed recorded the highest percentage, with 78.7%. By economic activity, Information and communication (68.9%) and Financial and insurance activities (59.7%) stood out. The regions with the highest proportion of innovative enterprises were Greater Lisbon and the Setúbal Peninsula (47.3% and 47.1%, respectively).
During this period, 24.3% of enterprises introduced product innovations, an increase of 1.7 pp compared with 2020-2022, and 37.6% introduced process innovations, representing a decrease of 2.8 pp compared with the 2020-2022 period (40.4%) and of 5.1 pp compared with the 2018-2020 three-year period.
In 2024, 14.9% of turnover resulted from the sale of new or improved products, representing a slight decrease compared with 2022 (-0.3 p.p.), with the Information and communication sector standing out (37.1%). In the same year, expenditure on innovation activities reached €4,865.1 million, with the majority concentrated in the Greater Lisbon (40.1%) and Northern (35.2%) regions.
Between 2022 and 2024, 25.4% of enterprises were innovative and introduced innovations with environmental benefits, regardless of the extent to which they contributed to environmental protection. In 2024, innovative enterprises spent a total of €1,448.3 million on innovation with these kinds of benefits, which accounted for 29.8% of total expenditure on innovation activities.
See the Publication
