Innovation in Companies Statistics. 2024

The number of companies with 10 employees and over based in Catalonia with expenditure on innovative activities in 2024 accounted for 5,711, 4.8% higher than 2022. The expenditure on these activities amounted for 5,437.5 million euros, representing an increase of 12.8% compared to 2022. Counting the expenditure on innovation performed by all companies in Catalonia , regardless of where their head offices are located,, the amount reached 6,058.1 million euros, 12.1% higher than 2022.

By type of innovative activity, 52.9% of the expenditure performed in Catalonia corresponded to in-house R&D activities and 10.5% to R&D acquisition (external R&D), while the remaining 36.6% was assigned to other innovative activities (excluding R&D), such as the acquisition of machinery equipment, product design and training and development of the personnel allocated to different R&D innovations.

With regard to innovation intensity, the percentage of expenditure on innovation activities over turnover stood at 3.2% among innovative companies with 10 employees and over based in Catalonia.

In the last three years (2022–2024), 9,568 companies with 10 employees and over based in Catalonia performed technological innovation, representing 29.7% of the total (a percentage that is 3.2 points higher than in the 2020–2022 period). In the 2022–2024 period, 15.4% of all companies (4,950companies) performed product innovations (by introducing new or significantly improved goods or services) and 26.8% (8,624 companies) performed business process innovations (by implementing a new or improved business process for one or more business functions that significantly differed from the previous one).