Exactly one bid was received in 70% of 37029 tenders. The pattern changes with contract size: the share is highest among the cheapest contracts and much lower among the most expensive quarter. For businesses deciding where to invest bid preparation time, the result points to a market in which larger opportunities generally attract more competition. The figures concern tender counts and bid participation, not awarded-value totals.
Single bidding is most common at the lower end
The cheapest quarter of tenders had a single bid in 85% of cases, while the middle half recorded 79%. In both groups, the median number of bids was 1. That makes low-value opportunities the clearest setting for limited participation in this procurement picture. A single bid is a market condition, not evidence of impropriety: it may reflect the cost of preparing an offer, the availability of qualified suppliers, or the fit between a requirement and the firms able to deliver it. The figures do not establish which explanation applies to any individual tender, but they show where businesses are most often facing no direct bidder comparison.
Competition improves as contracts get larger
The most expensive quarter had a single bid in 37% of tenders, and its median number of bids was 4. That is a marked change from the cheaper bands, where the median was 1. The most expensive tenth had a single-bid share of 39% and a median of 1, so the relationship is not a straight line within every slice of contract size. Even so, the overall direction is clear: larger contracts generally draw more bids. For suppliers, that means the likely competitive setting cannot be inferred from contract size alone. The narrower band at the very top also needs separate attention, because its participation pattern differs from the wider most-expensive quarter.
| Contract size | Single bid | Median bids | Measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cheapest quarter | 85% | 1 | 9,257 |
| Middle half | 79% | 1 | 18,514 |
| Most expensive quarter | 37% | 4 | 9,258 |
| Most expensive tenth | 39% | 1 | 3,703 |
Buyer-level counts show where single bidding is concentrated
The Instituto Nacional de formación Técnico Profesional recorded 1524 tenders with a single bid, well above the counts shown for the other named buyers. The Hospital Materno Infantil San Lorenzo de Los Minas and the Hospital Infantil Robert Reid Cabral each recorded 426, while the Instituto Nacional de Recursos Hidráulicos recorded 423 and Hospital Ramón de Lara FFAA recorded 407. These counts identify where a large number of single-bid tenders occurred; they do not measure the share of each buyer’s procurement or establish a cause. A repeat win or a single bid is not evidence of impropriety. For bidders, the transferable lesson is to examine each buyer’s requirements, timing and contract-size mix rather than treating a buyer-level count as a verdict on competition.
WHY IT MATTERS
Single bidding is common in the cheaper contract bands, but it falls to 37% in the most expensive quarter. A repeat win or a single bid is not evidence of impropriety; businesses should read the pattern as a prompt to assess participation conditions tender by tender.
Data: Otnox — live procurement intelligence across 56 markets. Basis: 37,029 DO tenders published in the last 180 days that state both a value and a number of bids, 2026-05-10..2026-11-06.
