A battery boom drags sales of garden equipment and is up 3.2% at the end of 2018 compared to the previous year, despite the difficult start to the first few months. Comagarden / Morgan data say so.
The market for machinery and equipment for gardening and the care of greenery archives 2018 with an increase in sales compared to 2017. The data processed by the Italian association of builders Comagarden and by the statistical survey group Morgan indicate a total of 1,288,149 units sold (including all types of machinery, from self-propelled vehicles to motorized equipment, up to the simplest manual instruments). In percentage terms, this sales volume shows an increase of 3.2 percentage points compared to the previous year.
The machines and equipment powered by batteries are the main contributors to the positive sales trend, which have performed more brilliantly than the versions with thermal engines.
The trend of the chainsaw segment is emblematic, which despite having closed 2018 with a slight decrease compared to the previous year (-1.4%), in contrast with the trend of the sector, nevertheless recorded double-digit increases for battery-powered models (+ 22.5% on 2017).
The same dynamic affected the brushcutters and blowers / vacuums sector. For the former, with an overall growth of 7.2%, the battery versions saw sales increase by 34.3%; for the latter, however, the battery boom (+ 24.4%) played a decisive role in reversing the negative economic situation in 2017 and bringing sales of the entire segment back to positive territory (+ 0.7% compared to 2017).
This trend is even more marked in the trimmer segment, where, compared to a general 8.6%, battery-powered equipment recorded an increase of 44.8%, tripling sales compared to 2016.
The data of 2018 therefore confirm a progressive shift in the demand for gardening and green care machines and equipment to "green" propulsion systems with low environmental impact. In the case of trimmers and blowers, the battery-powered models gave a considerable boost to sales, causing a turnaround with respect to the contraction of 2017.
As for the other sectors, the growth of lawn tractors (+ 2%) and robotic lawnmowers continued also in 2018, with sales increasing by 11.9%, after the substantial + 18.5% achieved in 2017.
In decisive countertrend are the shredders, which recorded a decline for the third consecutive year (from 2016 to 2018 sales decreased by over a thousand units) and sprayers, down 7.1%. Instead, the decline in snow plows (-3.4%) is the reflection of increasingly mild winter seasons and "avaricious" snowfall. In terms of units, the most consistent type of machine is that of chainsaws (335 thousand pieces sold), followed by lawnmowers (277,566) and brush cutters (266.296).