Most market research produces a number nobody can act on
“The Portuguese market for X is worth €400 million” is not a finding. It does not tell you whether anyone will take your call, what they pay today, or how many of them you could plausibly reach in a year. This page is about the research that actually changes a decision: four questions, three official sources that cost nothing, and a sizing model built so that you can break it.
Sizing that ends in a number of customers
Market size in euro is where most research stops. The only figure that decides anything is how many customers have to say yes before being here pays for itself. Everything above that line is context.
Move the reach slider down to two per cent and watch what happens. For most foreign entrants that is the honest figure in year one, because reach is a function of relationships and language rather than of market size. A plan that only works at twenty per cent reach is not a plan; it is a hope with a spreadsheet attached.
Three official sources that cost nothing
Most of what a commissioned report would tell you about Portuguese market size is already public, published by the people who collect it, and citable.
INE — Instituto Nacional de Estatística
The national statistics institute. Company counts, turnover bands, employment and demographics, broken down by CAE activity code and by region. This is where a defensible count of “how many of them exist” comes from.
- Enterprises by activity code and by district
- Turnover and employment distributions
- Population and household data for consumer markets
Eurostat
The same definitions applied across all member states, which is what makes comparison possible. Use it to sanity-check whether Portugal is unusual on your metric or simply smaller, and to decide whether a Portuguese entity serves one market or twenty-seven.
- Like-for-like comparison across the EU
- Structural business statistics by sector
- Price levels, which differ more than people expect
Banco de Portugal
Sector statistics and aggregated company data, including balance-sheet and profitability norms by industry. Useful for a question most sizing ignores: whether the companies in your target market can actually afford what you are selling.
- Sector aggregates and financial ratios
- Payment behaviour, which varies by sector
- Macro series for the context around your market
And one caution about data
Official sources disagree with each other more often than people assume. We hit this writing about migration, where AIMA and INE diverge below the top three nationalities. Where sources conflict, say so rather than picking the convenient one.
- Check the definition before comparing two numbers
- Check the reference year; many series lag
- Where they disagree, cite both
Research that changes a decision, and research that is theatre
The distinction is simple: could the result make you not do this? If no outcome of a piece of research would change the plan, it is reassurance, and you are paying for it.
- Ten conversations with real potential buyers who are not your friends
- What the incumbent alternative costs, including the cost of doing nothing
- A count of how many buyers you can actually reach, with the channel named
- One signed pilot, or one firm refusal with a reason attached
- Finding out who already serves this market in Portugal, and at what price
- Total market size in euro, with no reachable subset
- A survey of people who will never buy, because they were easy to survey
- A competitor matrix built entirely from competitors’ own websites
- A bought report whose conclusion you could write before reading it
- Any research that cannot produce a “do not do this” outcome
Six weeks, in the order that saves the most money
Cheapest and most decisive first. If it dies in week two, you have spent two weeks rather than a year and an entity.
Count the buyers from INE by activity code, sanity-check against Eurostat, and write down the reachable subset with the channel named next to it. Two to four days of work, and it frequently ends the exercise on its own.
Who sells this in Portugal today, at what price, and how do buyers find them. If nobody does, treat that as a warning rather than an opportunity until you know why. Empty markets are usually empty for a reason.
With buyers, not advisers. The target is not encouragement, it is a specific answer to what they use now and what it costs. Conversations that produce only enthusiasm have told you nothing.
Where it is possible, make a sale into Portugal from the entity you already have. One real transaction answers more questions than any report, and it tests the thing research cannot: whether anyone will actually pay.
With a reachable count, a price point, a channel and ideally one transaction, the structure question becomes answerable. Done in the other order, you are choosing a tax regime for a business you have not yet proved exists here.
What research will not tell you
The single biggest determinant of a foreign entrant’s first year, and no dataset contains it. It is a function of introductions, language and credibility. The only way to measure it is to try, which is why ten conversations beat any report.
Test it, do not model itSector norms exist but the variance within them swamps the average, and a foreign supplier is not starting where an incumbent starts. Plan on it being longer than your home market and find out by doing it.
Assume slower, verify in practicePublished cost-per-click figures for European markets vary by multiples depending on the source, which is why our own analysis of this is anchored to a figure you supply and applies relative indices rather than publishing an absolute.
Anchor to your own dataThis one is genuinely answerable, free, from INE by activity code and region, cross-checked against Eurostat. If a research proposal is charging you mainly for this, you are paying someone to use a public database.
INE and Eurostat, at no costWhat people ask before spending on research
How much research should I do before incorporating?
Enough to answer four questions: who buys this in Portugal, how many of them exist, what they currently pay for the alternative, and what it would take to reach them. If you cannot answer those from desk research and a dozen conversations, more desk research will not help — the gap is usually access to buyers, not data.
Where does reliable Portuguese market data come from, free?
INE, the national statistics institute, publishes company counts, turnover bands and employment by activity code. Eurostat lets you compare Portugal against other member states on the same definitions. Banco de Portugal publishes sector statistics and company-level aggregates. Between them they answer most sizing questions at no cost, in a form you can cite.
Do I need a paid market report?
Usually not, and almost never first. Commissioned reports are worth buying when you need a number you will defend to an investor or a board, or when the question turns on something only primary interviews can reach. For deciding whether to incorporate, free official data plus ten real conversations beats a bought PDF, because the PDF cannot tell you whether anyone will take your call.
What is the most common mistake?
Sizing the market rather than the reachable market. Portugal having forty thousand companies in your target activity is irrelevant if you can only credibly reach the two hundred that attend one trade event and read one trade publication. The second number is the one your plan lives on, and it is the one almost nobody writes down.
Can I test Portugal without incorporating?
Often, yes, and it is usually the cheaper order. Selling into Portugal from your existing entity, attending the trade events, and getting to ten real conversations costs a fraction of standing up a company and tells you more. An entity becomes necessary when a customer requires a local counterparty, when you hire, or when the activity creates a taxable presence anyway.
How long should this take?
Weeks, not quarters. Desk sizing from official sources is a few days. Ten conversations with real potential buyers takes three to six weeks if you are diligent about it. If a research process is running past two months without changing anyone’s mind, it has stopped being research and become a way of postponing the decision.
Send the model, we will try to break it
Put your numbers into the sizing above and send us what came out, with the reach and win rates you chose. We will tell you which assumption we think is wrong and why, what the entity would really cost at that scale, and whether to sell into Portugal before incorporating in it. Within a working day, at no cost.