Remote selling by telephone remains substantial in telecommunications, energy, insurance and consumer finance — precisely the sectors where the distance contracting rules were designed to bite.
Size
115,000seats in the sectorAPCC, Portugal, 2025
€3.7 bncluster turnoverDeloitte for APCC, 2022
1,717operations surveyed, across 96 undertakingsAPCC, 2025
30 %of contacts handled by automated agentsAPCC, 2025; up 16 percentage points
485,203complaints in the national complaints bookDirectorate-General for Consumer Affairs, 2025
23.5 %agent turnoverAPCC, 2025
Categories of audience
| Category | Legal position | Verified size | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Financial services and insurance | Obliged, with conduct supervision layered on top | Covered by the Spanish regime as a service of general interest | First |
| Electronic communications and postal services | Obliged, with a sector regulator of its own | The sector with the highest volume of consumer complaints | First |
| Providers of essential public services — energy, water and waste | Obliged, with reinforced application | Portugal: 39 electricity and gas suppliers; 352 water and waste operators | First |
| Outsourced customer service providers | Performing party, with contractual liability of its own and liability as a data processor | Concentrate 83 % of the sector’s seats; 74.7 % of operations are outsourced | Second |
| In-house operations in retail, healthcare, industry and services | Obliged as a trader in the consumer relationship | 25.3 % of operations are in-house | Second |
Sources
Quantitative data comes from the Portuguese Contact Centre Association, from the study it commissioned from Deloitte, from Eurostat and from the sector regulators cited on each page. Figures drawn from different sources are not additive, and the notes indicate where the series diverge. [Data not confirmed in an official source is marked in square brackets and italics.]
Locate your organisation
The first question is not which service you need, but which category your organisation falls into and what follows from that.