How to Analyze a Norwegian Market

What "a market" means in practice

A market analysis answers four questions: how many potential customers there are, how big they are, whether the segment is growing, and where the demand is right now. In Norway you can get surprisingly far on all four with free public data. The catch is that each source counts something slightly different.

Start by defining the market in terms the data understands:

• Who buys. The customer group described by one or more industry codes. A hypothetical example: a Stavanger-based software company selling maintenance planning tools might target building installation companies and repair of machinery and equipment.
• Where. All of Norway, one or more counties, or specific municipalities.
• Which size. A minimum number of employees, or a revenue range, that makes a company a realistic customer for what you sell.
• Which entities. Usually active companies only, excluding entities that are bankrupt, being wound up, or have no economic activity.

Write this definition down. Every number you produce later is only meaningful relative to it.

Choose the right industry codes

Norwegian industry codes are based on the EU's NACE classification. On 1 September 2025 Brønnøysundregistrene and Statistics Norway (SSB) moved from SN2007 to the new standard SN2025 in their registers. SN2025 has fewer codes than SN2007, and some areas changed significantly, for example the split of information and communication, and motor vehicle repair moving to a different section. SSB is moving its published statistics to SN2025 gradually over 2026 to 2029, so for a while some tables use SN2007 and others SN2025.

Two practical consequences:

• Do not mix standards. If you compare a register count from today with an SSB table that still uses SN2007, check that the codes cover the same activities.
• Use more than one code. Companies choose their own industry code on registration, and many do more than their code says. Map the two or three codes closest to your customer profile, then check a sample of companies by hand.

SSB's classification database, Klass, has both standards. Our guide on how to find Norwegian companies by industry goes deeper into code selection.

Count the companies: Enhetsregisteret

Enhetsregisteret, the Central Coordinating Register for Legal Entities, is the most direct way to count companies by industry and location. It is open data from Brønnøysundregistrene, with fields for industry code, legal form, business address, number of employees, registration date and status (including bankruptcy and winding-up).

When you count, decide on these points and apply them consistently:

• Legal forms. Limited companies (AS), sole proprietorships (ENK), general partnerships and others behave very differently as customers. Count them separately.
• Main entities or sub-units. Enhetsregisteret also registers sub-units (underenheter), which are the local establishments of a business. A chain with ten branches is one main entity and ten sub-units. Count main entities when you are selling to the company, and sub-units when the decision or the need is local.
• Active only. Exclude entities flagged as bankrupt or under winding-up.
• Unknown is not zero. Many entities have no employee figure. Report them as "unknown", not as companies with zero employees. Otherwise the size distribution will look smaller than it is.

Compare with official statistics from SSB

Register counts tell you how many entities exist. SSB's statistics tell you how many are economically active and how much activity there is. SSB publishes its tables in StatBank (Statistikkbanken), free of charge and under the CC BY 4.0 licence. StatBank also has an open API that needs no registration.

Relevant SSB statistics for market analysis include:

• Establishments (Bedrifter). Annual statistics on establishments by industry and size group, based on the number of employees.
• Enterprises (Føretak). Annual statistics on enterprises, turnover and employment by industry.
• Enterprise demography (Føretaksdemografi). New enterprises, closures and survival, useful for judging how dynamic a segment is.
• Structural business statistics. Industry-level figures on turnover, value added and costs, published per main industry area.
• Job vacancies (Ledige stillingar). Quarterly statistics on vacancies by industry.

Search StatBank by subject rather than relying on table numbers, because tables are replaced when classifications or methods change. SSB's counts and the register will not match exactly. SSB applies its own definitions of activity, and its figures refer to a given year. Expect a gap and explain it, rather than picking whichever number looks better.

Size distribution and growth from annual accounts

Companies with a reporting obligation file their annual accounts with the Register of Company Accounts (Regnskapsregisteret) at Brønnøysundregistrene, due by 31 July. For limited companies, that means you can see revenue, operating result and equity, and compare years.

Useful ways to use accounts in a market analysis:

• Size distribution by revenue. Group the segment into revenue bands. If a few companies account for most of the segment's revenue, that changes how you prioritise sales effort.
• Growth. Compare the latest two or three years for each company, then summarise the share of companies growing, flat or shrinking. That says more about a market than an average.
• Profitability. A segment where most companies are losing money buys differently from one where most are profitable.

Keep the limits in mind. Sole proprietorships only file accounts above certain size limits, so they are largely missing from revenue analyses. Accounts describe the previous year, and companies in a group may report activity in a different entity than the one you see locally.

Demand signals: public tenders and job ads

Statistics describe the structure of a market. Demand signals show where something is happening now.

Public tenders

Public buyers announce procurements on Doffin, Norway's national notice database operated by DFØ, and above the EEA thresholds also on TED, the EU's procurement portal. Tenders show what municipalities, hospitals and state agencies are buying and in what volumes. Award notices, mandatory above the EEA thresholds, show which suppliers win. If your customers are public bodies, Doffin is the market. If your customers are suppliers to public bodies, award notices show who is winning work and may need capacity.

Job ads

Hiring is one of the clearest public signs of activity. NAV's job platform arbeidsplassen.no publishes most active vacancies in Norway, and NAV offers a public feed of the ads. A rise in ads for a particular role within your target segment can indicate growth or new projects. Read it carefully: a job ad shows that a company is hiring. It does not show that it needs your product.

Limitations to state in your analysis

A credible analysis says what it cannot tell you. For Norwegian public data, the usual limits are:

• Industry codes are self-reported and only approximate a company's real activity.
• Employee figures can lag and are missing for many entities.
• Accounts are a year old when filed, and absent for most sole proprietorships.
• Below-threshold tenders are often not announced on Doffin, so tender data understates public demand for small contracts.
• Statistics and register counts use different definitions, and the move from SN2007 to SN2025 makes comparisons over time harder.
• Privacy. Sole proprietorships are often named after the owner, so lists of ENKs contain personal data under GDPR. If you move from analysis to outreach, remember that the Marketing Control Act (markedsføringsloven) § 15 requires prior consent for e-mail marketing to natural persons.

Present your result as ranges and explain where the numbers come from, including the date you pulled the data.

How Propler's market analysis helps

Propler is built on Norwegian public data and can shorten the first round of this work:

• Market analysis. Analyze (login required) gives an overview of an industry group in a county or in all of Norway: the number of companies, the size distribution, growth, and the largest companies (how many are shown depends on your plan). It uses our copy of Enhetsregisteret, about 1.18 million entities refreshed nightly from Brønnøysundregistrene, together with the latest filed accounts.
• Free company search. The company search lets you test your market definition without logging in. Filter by industry group, county, municipality, legal form, status, number of employees and registration date. You can also narrow to companies with open job ads, open tenders or tenders in the last year.

Propler's tender data comes from TED where the buyer is Norwegian. Doffin is not live in Propler yet, so check Doffin directly for national notices. Propler also does not replace SSB's statistics: use both, and note the difference.

Once you have sized the market, the next step is turning it into a list of companies to approach. See how to build a qualified B2B prospect list and our market intelligence solution.