- The penetration rate of the fixed telephone service (FTS), the mobile telephone service (MTS) and the Internet access service (IAS) among Portugal's SMEs was between 89 and 94 percent. Around 53 percent use 4 or 5 different electronic communication services.
Internet penetration among Portuguese companies is in line with the EU28 average and Portugal is ranked in 16th place. Portugal's ranking is lower in the case of construction and manufacturing and also in the case of small enterprises. - There are significant differences in the penetration of services depending on the activity exercised. The construction sector has the highest penetration rate when it comes to mobile services but the lowest when it comes to fixed services. An opposite scenario is reported for the retail and manufacturing sectors. Subscription TV subscribers are mostly from ''other services''. In an EU context, high rates of penetration are reported for the majority of sectors in Portugal, with the exception of manufacturing and construction.
- The main barriers to take-up of services are cited as use of alternative networks or services and ''lack of need/interest''.
- 89.7 percent of the surveyed companies subscribe to bundled offers. Quadruple-play bundles are the most commonly used (27.2 percent, +15.1 percentage points versus 2012). The FTS+FBB bundle has dropped to second place (20.6 percent), falling 20.1 percentage points).
The vast majority of the surveyed companies (84.7 percent) have a standard enterprise offer. Only 8.8 percent of SMEs have a tailor-made offer. - As regards the use of new technologies and new information and communication services, Over-the-top (OTT) services stand out, especially the messaging service (37.3 percent) and the voice over Internet service (27.2 percent). Around 11.4 percent of the SMEs surveyed made use of cloud computing.
On a scale of 1 (no substitutability) to 10 (full substitutability), the survey's respondents reported a degree of substitutability between OTT services and traditional services in the company of 5.5 in the case of mobile voice and 5.2 in the case of fixed voice. - According to the survey, Grupo PT enjoys the highest share of SME customers. Grupo PT's leadership is most evident among fixed services, even though its share has been declining.
Grupo NOS is in second place in terms of fixed services and bundled services, while Vodafone is the second largest provider when it comes to mobile services and is the provider that has reported most growth in terms of fixed services. - In 2014, the FTS was the service which saw the highest rate of provider switching (9.4 percent, +0.9 percentage points), in line with previous years. The level of provider switching among SMEs is the highest on record in the case of the MTS (8.5 percent, +2 percentage points), FIAS (8.9 percent, +2.6 percentage points) and MIAS (7 percent, + 3.9 percentage points).
87 percent of respondents had a 24 month contract lock-in period and the existence of a contract lock-in period was the main reason given for not switching provider. - The business customers of services included in bundles were those that complained most (28.6 percent) during 2014. Customers of the standalone FIAS were the least satisfied (7.38 points on a scale between 1 - very dissatisfied -, to 10 - very satisfied).
