More money spent on gardens in Europe

Europe’s consumers are spending on their gardens once more. From January to June 2014, the market for garden tools and garden chemical products experienced growth of 16.5 per cent compared with the same period in 2013 in Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Belgium. Overall sales amounted to € 3.4 bn. The figures were released by market research company GfK.Germany and Great Britain achieved the highest growth rate of around 20 per cent. Sales in Germany came to roughly € 1.3 bn and in Great Britain to € 695 mio. The smallest sales growth of 6.1 per cent was in the Netherlands, where the market attained a volume of € 90 mio. France and Belgium lay between the two extremes with market growth of 12.8 per cent (overall sales: € 1.26 bn) and 15.5 per cent (overall sales: € 103 mio) respectively.In the individual product groups, sales of garden watering and cleaning products rose in particular to a total of € 479 mio, 19.7 per cent more than in the same period last year. Garden power tools recorded the second-highest growth at 17.8 per cent, with overall sales of € 1.38 bn. The herbicides and pesticides segment grew by 15 per cent to € 1.36 bn, while hand-held garden appliances generated sales of € 221 mio in the first six months of 2014 (up 10.8 per cent).The market for automatic lawnmowers has doubled. This product category recorded the biggest growth rates in the garden power tools segment in the first half of 2014 (105.1 per cent), yielding a sales volume of € 53 mio.Hand-held cordless appliances also sold well in the first six months of 2014 and attained a sales volume of € 145 mio, equivalent to growth of 56.9 per cent. Sales of electric garden tools, on the other hand, increased by 19.4 per cent to € 333 mio.