The economy may still be floundering. But the Christmas tree business is booming. According to new study by research firm IBISWorld, Americans will spend an estimated $3.4 billion on Christmas trees this year, the highest amount since 2007. Here, a brief guide, by the numbers, to this "booming" holiday business:
25 million
Real Christmas trees Americans will buy this year, according to IBISWorld's forecast
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
$800 million
Estimated retail cost of those trees
10 million
Artificial trees Americans will buy this holiday season
$2.6 billion
Estimated retail cost of those artificial trees
$3.4 billion
Total estimated Christmas tree spending this year
Estimated increase, in percent, from last year's Christmas tree spending
$3.51 billion
Amount Americans spent on Christmas trees in 2007
$3.14 billion
Amount Americans spent on Christmas trees in 2008, when the global financial meltdown took a huge bite out of this seasonal industry
80
Percent of all artificial trees that are manufactured in China
6 to 9
Number of years an average family uses an artificial tree before throwing it away
7
Number of years it takes, on average, to grow a typical Christmas tree
More than 100,000
People who are employed either part-time or full-time in the Christmas tree industry
Sources: Bloomberg, Mental Floss, National Christmas Tree Association, Valley Breeze, Washington Post
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
