F03 — Market Growth
Growth, Compounding and What It Actually Means
This page answersIs the pet economy genuinely growing, or is it mostly price?
102 — Historical series
U.S. pet expenditure, 2018 to 2026 projected
Nominal reported expenditure
Nominal reported expenditure
Nominal reported expenditure
Nominal reported expenditure
Nominal reported expenditure
Nominal reported expenditure
Nominal reported expenditure
Nominal reported expenditure
Nominal reported expenditure
Compound growth
CAGR by horizon
| Horizon | Start | End (2025) | CAGR | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3-year | US$136.8B (2022) | US$158.0B | 4.9% | Nominal |
| 5-year | US$103.6B (2020) | US$158.0B | 8.8% | Nominal |
| 7-year | US$90.5B (2018) | US$158.0B | 8.3% | Nominal |
A 10-year CAGR is not shown: the reported series available in this data room begins in 2018, and extending it backwards would require splicing methodologies. Missing data is left missing.
Interpretation
Nominal growth is not volume growth
Price
A material part of nominal expenditure growth since 2021 reflects price inflation in food, supplies and veterinary services rather than more pets or more transactions.
Mix
Premiumisation shifts spend upward per unit — higher-value food, specialist veterinary care, paid services — without increasing the number of households.
Volume
Household counts and per-pet service frequency move slowly. Platform economics depend on transaction volume, so a platform should underwrite volume, not headline dollars.
The inflation-adjusted series is DERIVED by rebasing reported nominal expenditure with annual U.S. CPI. It is a transparent arithmetic adjustment, not an independently reported real-terms series.
Investor implication
An acquirer should discount headline market growth and underwrite the two things a platform can actually monetise: the number of pet-related decisions that begin online, and the share of those decisions that end in a bookable transaction.