The American Pet Products Association (APPA) released their 2011-2012 National Pet Owner Survey, which provides insight on demographics, buying habits and other traits of dog, cat, fish, bird, equine, reptile and small animal pet owners. The complete and annual survey includes more than 500 pages of trended information on pets covering the last 20 years.
The survey monitors consumer habits on an ongoing basis in order to identify short and long-term trends in pet ownership, product and service consumption, and lifestyle and media habits. In addition, the study also pinpoints preferences on specific services, retail outlets and dollar amount spent per product category and retail outlet.
The survey results showed that the number of U.S. households that own a pet has increased by 2.1 percent, to 72.9 million. Pet owners in the U.S. own more than 78 million dogs, 86.4 million cats, 151.1 million freshwater fish, 8.61 million saltwater fish, 16.2 million birds, 16 million small animals, 13 million reptiles and 7.9 million equines, results showed.
The survey is intended to develop a consumer profile including behavioral information and lifestyle and media habits such as internet usage, time spent listening to the radio, travel, work, television viewing, leisure activities, pet ownership and online shopping for pet products.
For more information, visit www.americanpetproducts.org.