Editor: Lynsey Barker
ISBN: 1-84168-208-X

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Executive Summary

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The market for garden equipment, as covered by this report, was estimated to have been worth £444m at retail selling prices (rsp) in 2000, an increase of 3.7 percent on the previous year.

Of the sectors considered, sales of lawn mowers accounted for the largest market share despite remaining at the same level in 2000 as achieved in a record year in 1998. The other sectors considered are those of powered tools and equipment, water management equipment and hand tools. In these days, when ease of use, minimum effort and instant results are expected, there are powered versions of most types of traditional hand tools. Product innovation is essential to develop the market.

With the increasing dominance of multinationals within the market, it is not surprising that there is considerable import and export activity. Although the British agricultural engineering industry, in its entirety, has a favourable trade balance, the opposite is true of the market for garden equipment, with principal suppliers to the UK market including Germany, the US and Japan.

Gardening may be regarded as a chore or a leisure pursuit but, whichever, household penetration of some form of gardening equipment is high. Research from BMRB International, undertaken in 2000, found that nearly 85 percent of respondents had either a garden or an allotment. Some 65.6 percent had visited a garden centre in the previous 12 months and, of these, 56.7 percent had made a purchase.

Largely thanks to television programmes such as Ground Force, gardening has become a more upmarket occupation, with many keen gardeners willing to spend freely. Certainly, the UK economy has been healthy and consumers have enjoyed the consequences of cut-throat competition in retail markets. However, some analysts are predicting a recession hitting the economy by autumn 2001. This is seemingly confirmed by a 77 percent increase in the number of profits warnings from quoted British firms during the first quarter of 2001 compared with the last 3 months of 2000. A worsening situation in the US will have a knock-on effect in Britain, reducing consumer confidence.

Taking this into consideration, Key Note is forecasting modest growth in the garden equipment market in the period to 2005, with power tools and equipment and water management equipment expected to see the strongest growth.

Text © 2001Key Note

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