Who wins Belgium's public contracts? A concentration analysis
The paradox of small markets: where concentration is highest
The most striking finding from this analysis is counterintuitive: Belgium's most supplier-concentrated procurement categories are not the large, high-profile sectors but the small, specialist ones. In CPV (Common Procurement Vocabulary) division 16 — agricultural and forestry machinery — just five suppliers held 39.1% of the 23 named-winner awards recorded. In mining and basic metals (division 14), five suppliers accounted for 23.8% of 21 awards. These are thin markets by volume, but the repeat-winner pattern is clear.
By contrast, the sectors that dominate headlines and budgets — IT services, construction, professional consulting — show some of the lowest concentration scores in the dataset.
Methodology note
All data are drawn from TED (Tenders Electronic Daily), the official EU public-procurement journal, covering Belgian contracting authorities (public bodies that issue tenders). The dataset covers awards published on TED; no time range was specified in the underlying data extract. Concentration is measured as the share of named-winner awards held by the top five suppliers within each CPV division (a two-digit product/service grouping). Divisions with fewer than 20 named-winner awards are excluded as statistically thin. Winner names are reported as they appear in TED notices and may reflect minor spelling variants as separate entities. Values are reported where disclosed; coverage is 100% for all winners listed in the top-overall table.
The concentrated end: small volumes, recognisable faces
Beyond agricultural machinery, CPV division 19 (leather, textile, rubber, and plastic materials) recorded a top-5 share of 21.1% across 38 awards, with Belcotrans, Powerpack SA, and Powerpack NV together accounting for six wins. The musical instruments, sport goods, games, and toys division (37) showed a 19.4% top-5 share across 31 awards.
Chemical products (division 24) present an instructive mid-table case: 97 awards were recorded — a meaningfully larger pool — yet the top five still held 12.4% of awards. NIPPON GASES BELGIUM led with four wins, followed by L'Air Liquide Belge with three. Industrial gas supply, where infrastructure and safety certification create natural barriers, illustrates how market structure can sustain moderate concentration even at higher volumes.
Hotel, restaurant, and retail trade services (division 55) showed an 11.6% top-5 share across 95 awards, with ARAMARK and Sodexo Belgium each recording three wins — a pattern consistent with the catering sector's tendency toward framework agreements held by a small number of large operators.
The contested end: volume dilutes dominance
The least concentrated divisions are also the largest by award count. Business services — law, marketing, consulting, and recruitment (division 79) — recorded 1,921 named-winner awards, the highest in the dataset. The top five suppliers combined held just 0.6% of those awards, with no single firm exceeding three wins. Research and development services (division 73) showed an equally low 0.8% top-5 share across 617 awards.
IT services: consulting, software, and support (division 72) is particularly notable. With 1,487 awards and a top-5 share of just 0.8%, it is one of the most dispersed markets in Belgian public procurement — despite the fact that several IT firms appear prominently in the overall top-winners table by contract value. Quistor Enterprises B.V., Sopra Steria Belgium, CGI Belgium NV, European Dynamics Luxembourg SA, and Deloitte Consulting & Advisory BV each recorded two to three wins in division 72, but against a base of nearly 1,500 awards, that represents a negligible share. The IT market, in other words, is large enough to absorb many suppliers simultaneously.
Construction (division 45) tells a similar story: 1,197 awards, a top-5 share of 0.8%, and no single firm exceeding two recorded wins. Architectural, engineering, and inspection services (division 71) produced 1,074 awards with a 0.9% top-5 share.
High-value outliers in the overall winner table
The overall top-winners list, ranked by win count, reveals a separate dimension: contract value. CONSTRUCCIONES Y AUXILIAR DE FERROCARRILES, S.A. (CAF), the Spanish rolling-stock manufacturer, recorded a single reported award with a disclosed value of €4.93 billion — by far the largest single figure in the dataset. Bechtle NV recorded seven wins with a total reported value of approximately €1.56 billion. These figures reflect the scale of individual framework agreements or multi-year contracts rather than frequency of winning, and should be read accordingly.
OVH SAS recorded nine wins with a total reported value of approximately €1.33 billion, while Quistor Enterprises B.V. recorded three wins totalling €1.08 billion — illustrating how a small number of large IT infrastructure contracts can produce substantial aggregate values from relatively few award notices.
What the data does and does not show
This analysis covers only awards where a winner name was recorded in TED notices. Many Belgian procurement awards — particularly at lower values or from certain contracting authorities — are not published on TED, or are published without a named winner. The concentration figures reported here therefore reflect the disclosed, TED-published portion of the market and should not be read as a complete picture of supplier dominance in any sector. Where a division appears competitive, that may reflect genuine market breadth, or it may reflect the diversity of contracting authorities each procuring independently for similar needs.