The price increase and the weather trend are the two main factors that weigh on the sales data of gardening machines, processed by Comagarden on the Morgan survey. The market for green care machines closes in 2022 with a deficit of 15.2% which affects almost all types. In particular, the purchases of the medium segment are bad: according to Comagarden, the gap between high-end and low-priced vehicles with lower quality is widening.
Among the consequences of the last particularly dry seasons there is also the reduction of maintenance interventions on lawns and green areas. To this factor is added the increase in production costs and therefore the price increases.
In terms of units sold, the season closed with 1.4 million machines, against 1.6 in 2021. For lawnmowers, the drop was 21.4% (255,000 units sold), brushcutters by 10% (273,000). , while the negative balance of chainsaws is equal to 14.3% (369 thousand machines sold). Hedge trimmers fell by 24.4% (94,000), while the deficit for garden tractors was more contained (-4.2%, 22,700 machines). Zero turns for hobbyists grew slightly (+0.6%, 1,550 units) while only pole pruners (almost 26,500) increased compared to 2021, closing with a 10% profit.
The downturn was somewhat expected as a backlash from the outstanding results of the last two seasons.
“What worries the manufacturers – explains the president of Comagarden Renato Cifarelli – is the drop in demand in the mid-range of the market, which has the most important numbers and which recorded a growing trend. If this trend were to be confirmed also in the new year - says Cifarelli - we would have an increasingly polarized market between high-end vehicles on the one hand, expensive and accessible to few, and cheap products on the other, often of low quality and made in those countries exporting technologies that are not very reliable, even in terms of safety".
Added to this is the issue of competition from low-cost products, "A central issue - underlines Cifarelli - beyond the current market fluctuations, because Italian and European industries are required to comply with increasingly demanding Community regulations, and this it involves investments that affect the final price of our machinery and risk widening the gap even further with those made outside the European Union”.