I love data. With the advent of the internet and now terabyte hard drives it’s everywhere around us. Unfortunately there is not much data available on the aquarium hobby or the industry. Aquarium industry statistics range from aquarium forum polls to questionable surveys from non-profit organizations. No matter where the numbers come from it’s not [...]
I love data. With the advent of the internet and now terabyte hard drives it’s everywhere around us. Unfortunately there is not much data available on the aquarium hobby or the industry. Aquarium industry statistics range from aquarium forum polls to questionable surveys from non-profit organizations.
No matter where the numbers come from it’s not an easy task to judge the number of saltwater aquariums or their popularity; fish and corals die, hobbyists enter and leave. I don’t have an answer for this, but Google can give us some interesting numbers on the topic.
Google Trends is an incredibly powerful tool that the search giant provides free of charge to those with Google accounts. The idea is that Google’s keyword data can show historical trends while helping to predict future ones. Using this data I’ve charted the relative popularity of three search terms (“Clownfish“, “Aquariums” and “Saltwater Aquarium“) from January 2004 to August 2010. To find this data yourself, including standard deviations and approximated regional densities, see Google Trends. It’s important to note that this data is normalized and scaled relative to the time period (’04 to present) on an independent term bases–meaning 1.0 equals the average search frequency for that time period. Also note the graph above is for representational purposes. Although plotted to Google’s data points, the stacked view is just that. To view these items relative to one another see Google’s chart.
This data is not perfect; there are standard deviations that for some datapoints are upwards of 10%. It does however show a steady decline in their popularity. A great point shown in this graph is the rapid decline in the search term “Clownfish” coincides with the post ’03 release of finding Nemo. It’s been downhill since then.
A potential explanation for the overall negative slope is keyword specification. Who is actually searching for “saltwater aquarium”. Specific keywords such as “Acropora Care” do not have the volume to justify Google’s tracking; however, nearly all aquarium related keywords do show a negative trend.
An interesting keyword is “Nano Reef”. Ignoring the ’05/’06 periods where volume was not there for charting, this keyword shows clear cyclicality (winter month’s providing the peaks) with a modest decline through our recession. The same can be said for “Reef Tank”.
Google’s data is nothing to take too seriously. As we unfortunately know all too well in this hobby, not all aquarists research their purchases. In contrast of Google’s data, the 2009/2010 Nation Pet Owners Survey by the American Pet Products Association found that 71.4 Million homes, or 62% of U.S. households, own a pet. [That's down 1% from '07 and up 1% from '08.]
Of those homes, there is said to be 171.1 Million Freshwater Fishes and 11.7 Million Saltwater fishes. Over the past few years those numbers are up. To me the biggest impact on this hobby and industry is the economy–and that future is not looking very bright over the next 3 to 5 years.
On a more positive note Google’s numbers do show growth in one place–LEDs. The keyword “Aquarium LED” was one of the only growing trends we came across.
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