Innovative More Than One Third of Croatian Companies

Slightly more than one third of Croatian companies innovate, according to research conducted by the Croatian Bureau of Statistics on innovation activities in companies from 2020 to 2022, based on a sample of 4,198 companies.

According to this research, innovative companies are defined as those that introduced product innovations (physical products or services) or process innovations during the observed period. The research showed that the share of innovative companies increases with their size. Thus, during this period, 33.7 percent of small companies, 45.6 percent of medium-sized, and 68.4 percent of large companies were innovative.

Manufacturing companies lead in innovation activities, with a share of 39.1 percent of innovative companies, while innovative service companies accounted for 35 percent.

Innovative companies contribute to 65.9 percent of the total revenue of all observed companies in 2022. This trend, as noted, is also observed among employees, with 57.1 percent of all employees in 2022 being employed in innovative companies.

By the size of innovative companies, the largest share of total company revenue is generated by large companies (85 percent). In total company revenue, medium-sized companies account for 62.3 percent, while the share of small companies is 40.4 percent.

Innovation expenditures were reported by 24.5 percent of companies, with the most common expenditures for innovation activities (9.5 percent of companies), while a smaller number of companies allocate funds for their own research and development activities (9.3 percent) and for external research and development services (5.7 percent).

Companies most often independently conduct innovations for products (9.7 percent) and process innovations (25.6 percent), while a smaller number of companies conduct product innovations (6.5 percent) and process innovations (10.3 percent) in collaboration with others. The highest number of companies that do this in both ways, independently and in collaboration with others, is 31.9 percent.

Innovative companies that received any public financial support accounted for 42.5 percent, and those that used it for research and development or other innovation activities accounted for 31 percent, the research showed.