Hi,
In 1993 two gentlemen in the koi society - Servaas de Kock and Dr Neville Marais did a scientific survey. They found back then that 9.5% of all middle and upper middle income homes had koi.
Not gold fish or a water features but koi.
It would be interesting to find out what the stats are now. That would have to include the sale of fish and the sale of food. Then there is the spinoff of equipment, pond building, pond maintenance.
Some other stats I came across - in the UK there are over 2,000,000 ponds and more in Germany. In the USA 10% of all estimated 90,000,000 households have ornamental fish. In Holland 14% of all households have ornamental fish - this includes koi.
The stats on pets and pet food industry around the world are frightening. I remember developing a clumping cat litter for Master Foods (the Mars Group) and the figures they gave me ten years ago were 75,000,000 cats in the USA. And the cat litter market was over a billion US dollars in the USA only back then.
Oh yes another interesting fact - more tons of cat litter are sold in Europe per year than all the tons of Bentonite mined for all purposes in South Africa.
Chris