With nearly US$21 billion in sales last year, the US is not in danger of losing its ranking as the largest petfood market in the world anytime soon. (The new number two, Brazil, fell just short of US$6 billion in 2012.) And US petfood sales will continue to grow at 4% to 5% a year, according to Packaged Facts—a rate most consumer goods industries would love to have.
Yet there's no denying that other petfood markets around the world are growing at a much stronger clip, and that fact promises to influence the global petfood scene for at least the next few years. Consider:
- Brazil has become the second-largest market in fairly short order. Euromonitor has been predicting for several years that the country would hit that rank by at least 2013 and projected it to reach US$5.8 billion sales by 2015; it surpassed that figure in 2012. Brazil is the fastest-growing pet care market globally, expected to add more than US$2 billion in sales of all pet products by 2017.
- Petfood sales in the second fastest-growing market, Russia, are expected to double, to more than US$2 billion a year, no later than 2020 (see p. XX).
- China, the fourth fastest-growing pet care market, has grown 46% overall since 2007 and will increase another 64% by 2017, Euromonitor says.
- Petfood sales in India are growing 24% a year, making it the 10th fastest-growing pet care market (see p. XX).
This petfood data helps explain why so-called developing regions are beginning to account for a larger portion of global petfood sales each year (Table 1). Besides Brazil, Mexico (third), Argentina (fifth) and Venezuela (seventh) are also among the 10 fastest-growing pet care markets globally, driving increasing market share for Latin America. In Eastern Europe, Poland ranks as the eighth fastest-growing pet care market; in Asia Pacific, Turkey joins China and India among the fastest-growing markets.
It's true that, except for Brazil and Russia, most of these markets are starting from very small sales bases. When you consider the size of the human population in countries like China and India, however, and how quickly pet ownership and middle class households are rising, you can believe their petfood sales won't be dwarfed for long and the corresponding regions will continue to gain on the rest of the world.
Don't count out the US or similar developed markets yet—Michael Johnson of Chuck Latham Associates shares great tips (p. XX) on how to offset potential sales losses as baby boomers age—but be prepared for the mounting strength of these newer markets. They're called "emerging" for a reason.
