High-level healthcare for pets, including brain surgery and nanotechnology, could drive a major investment trend in the next five years.
ADVERTISEMENTPacemakers for dogs, brain surgeries and hip replacement – pets in 2025 may find these normal as veterinary services have gone through significant development in recent years, offering increasingly premium care, mirroring the treatment given to their human companions.This trend, hand in hand with a recent jump in pet numbers (and a forecasted skyrocketing of meat production), heralds a boom in the veterinary healthcare market for the next decade, driving investment in scientific medical training, equipment and facilities such as clinics.How pets became a long-tail investmentPet ownership soared during the COVID pandemic, with research by US bank Morgan Stanley showing that the number of pets in the US alone rose at least by 5 million between 2019 and 2022. The bank forecasts a 14% increase in pet ownership by 2030 in the US alone and a similar pattern has been seen in Europe.And even though the cost of living has risen significantly in the past few years, spending on pets’ needs, including premium and personalised pet food, accessories, as well as pet healthcare services, has soared.“We’re seeing that people are really willing and quite focused on their pets’ healthcare, and sometimes even spending more on their pet’s healthcare than their own healthcare,” said Junko Sheehan, CEO and founder of European veterinary chain UNAVETS about her experience in Europe. “They’d rather take their dog or cat to the vet and they will forego money on a nicer vacation or they will forgo on their own checkup.”The pet industry’s resistance to economic crises shows that benefits to the industry likely have a long tail, according to analysts. That’s not just a pun: in business, a ‘long tail’ strategy means making huge profits by selling hard-to-find, enduring products in small quantities to a wide consumer base, instead of selling large quantities of a few common products.“On the whole, the pet category remains an attractive and defensive investment across both food and products, as well as vets, insurance and other services, making investment in the pet sector relatively low-risk,” said Simeon Gutman, equity analyst at Morgan Stanley.Where the investment opportunities are in EuropeThere are approximately 340 million pets in Europe, and its vet market is valued at around $40bn (€38.5bn) making it the second-largest in the world. It is expected to grow by 6.4% until 2027, according to a 2022 study from market research company Renub Research.On a country-by-country basis, the biggest markets are in the UK and Spain, the latter offering 6,000 practices and veterinary hospitals and clinics. Germany, France and Italy are also big markets.While the vet market is largely dominated by a few big players in the US and the UK, continental Europe is still in the early stages of consolidation and the marke
Mer. Dic 25th, 2024
