Gaining and Declining Industries

April 15, 2005 7:46am by

Infectious Greed points to a fascinating data series compiled by InfoUSA. Their survey of highest percentage business growth or decline — citing the number of businesses — over the last five years:

Highest percentage business growth
Locks/Locksmiths (66.79%)
Check Cashing Services (62.78%)
Rehabilitation Services (59.71%)
Food Markets  (56.29%)
Entertainment Bureaus (53.80%)
Music & Live Entertainment (47.95%)
Title Companies (46.54%)
Cell Phones-Equipment/Supplies (46.22%)
Ice Cream Parlors (45.88%)
Music Instruction/Instrumental (44.98%)

Highest percentage business decline
Retail Music Vendors-Tape/CD (27.87 %)
Money Transfer Service (24.95 %)
Packaging Service (22.83 %)
Coffee & Tea (21.15 %)
Video Tapes/Discs (19.67 %)
TV/Radio Repair/Service (18.88 %)
Electronic Equip.-MFRS. (18.80 %)
Photo Finishing/Retail (18.50 %)
Libraries/Special Interest (18.39 %)
Mobile Homes/Dealers (18.23 %)

Entertainment and live music seem to be doing fairly well; Retail Music Vendors, TV repairmen, and photo finishing are a vanisghing breed. 

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What's been said:

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  1. Karmakin commented on Apr 15

    I was going to ask what these numbers were all about, that they didn’t make that much sense. But it refers to number of vendors. Gotcha.

    However, these numbers are pretty varied. Some have to do with social trends, and some have to do with market dominance. Most of the risers are social trends, but the decliners are more interesting.

    Retail Vendors/Tape-CD. The increasing focus of Radio on less and less acts favors the big box retailers over smaller stores. Smaller stores go out of business.

    Coffee and Tea. Starbucks anyone?

    Tapes/Discs. Again, domination of the big box retailers.

    Photo/Finishing:Killed by digital photography

  2. godement commented on Apr 15

    this post could be quite nicely complemented with a column reporting the actual growth of each business sector’s valued added, allowing us to make educated guesses about trends in business consolidation etc…

  3. Jojo commented on Apr 15

    Has there been some major breakthrough in locks that I’ve missed? Or are those haunted castle owners finally getting round to replacing their skeleton keys?

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