Information Technology landscape in PORTUGAL

IT Niches

Portugal has not historically possessed strengths in IT manufacturing. The Country has not yet developed a software niche that would be the basis for export. While foreign software manufacturers are present in Portugal, domestic producers have not gained any regional recognition and primarily serve the Portuguese market. Ninety-eight million USD worth of software was exported from Portugal in 1996, according to the Commerce Department of the ITA. However, this figure is not broken down into exports based from domestic producers, versus those produced by foreign firms.

Portugal exports telecom equipment, as well. Again, most is produced by foreign firms operating in Portugal who use the country as an export base. Telecom equipment exports do not comprise a large percentage of Portuguese exports.  In the chart above, telecom equipment exports are represented in "Other Products."  As Portugal's network has reached an advanced stage of digitization, orders for public switching equipment have declined. Public switching equipment systems are the main area of business for the telecommunications manufacturing industry in Portugal. Line telephony equipment and parts, which represent 71% of all exports, and telephone handsets, which represent 23% of all equipment exports, are the main export categories with Germany as the overwhelming recipient of 88.4% of all parts exported and 88.1% of all handsets exported. The dollar value of each segment is listed below: ⁶
 
 

$USD 000s	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995
Telephone Sets	23,061	27,779	8,565	12,231	12,331
Telephone Switching Equipment	2,236	1,418	452	835	432
Other Equipment, Line Systems	748	1,266	2,328	848	1,152
Other Telephonic Equipment	561	1,012	427	911	1,460
Line Telephony Equip. and Parts	33,829	34,528	23,095	30,540	37,300

 

 Automotive Niche

                                                                           Car Assembly

                                                                            (Includes light and mixed passenger vehicles and light and heavy commercial vehicles)

                                                                             Automotive Components (10⁹ Escudos)