Portugal’s Nonius Has Very Quietly Built Up A Huge Footprint In Hospitality Sector

February 18, 2025 by Dave Haynes

On the last day of ISE in Barcelona, I went early and walked waaaaay, waaaaay, waaaaaaay the hell back through the Fira Gran Via to Hall 8, which I think is actually on the outskirts of Valencia. It is a serious WALK from the main entry. I’d not been there yet, and I wanted to see who and what was in there with the guys doing drone show demos. I kind of likened the hall to overflow parking at a stadium, and there were all kinds of different things back there.

It was only when I got there that I realized that hall wasn’t really active for another 45 minutes, I read something wrong, so I wandered around the still largely empty booths and saw a stand for a CMS software company called Nonius. Oh gee, I thought, another CMS start-up in an industry that already has too many.

Still curious, I humped my way back there later that Friday, to find out more, and was astonished to learn this was a company that has been around for 20 years, has 200 people, 17 offices and is active in 5,000 or so sites, mainly hotels and related hospitality businesses. It has an installed base of some 575,000 screens.

Nonius is based in Porto, Portugal’s second biggest city, and it has quietly been doing its own thing – addressing its hyper-focused market as companies like Uniguest and Broadsign have done in the U.S. and Canada (and beyond).

The company has a cloud-based digital signage solution, but the distinction and advantage against most CMS competitors is that it also does the other things a hotel needs – like IPTV for hotel guest rooms and around the building, as well as mobile apps that can do things like digital room keys and online check-in.

Nonius also works in industries that have similar needs, like healthcare, cruise ships and sports and leisure venues.

This was all interesting to me on a few counts:

• I shouldn’t write off a company without asking some questions first;
• Market focus is a good thing;
• While there can be a lot of benefit to being noisy in a smallish, narrow industry, companies that take the silent and deep submarine approach can also do fine.