For decades the pet industry has been reliant on the spending patterns of pet owners from the Baby Boomer and Gen X generations, but Millennials have now closed the gap. Today there are 43 million pet owners in the 18- to 34-year-old age group, accounting for 31% of all pet owners, according to market research publisher Packaged Facts in its brand new report, Millennials as Pet Market Consumers.

The number of Millennial pet owners grew 25% between 2007 and 2015, while the number of pet owners in the 35-and-over age group increased just 14%. The majority of growth among Millennials during these years came from multicultural young adults, thus making Latinos in particular a key Millennial pet owner segment. Packaged Facts projects that Millennials will be responsible for adding another 2.6 million pet owners between 2015 and 2020.

“Millennials have become a strong consumer force in the pet market due to their sheer population numbers and the impressive buying power they bring to the table,” said David Sprinkle, research director, Packaged Facts. “They are more likely than other pet owners to both expect to spend and to actually spend more on higher priced pet products and pet care services.”

The accelerating aging of the American population threatens to shift the consumer landscape for the pet industry because pet ownership traditionally has declined precipitously after the age of 60. In addition, the population of 40- to 54-year-olds—an age segment with a relatively high propensity to own and spend money on pets—is expected to decline. Millennials will account for an ever growing share of pet expenditures in the years ahead because they represent a large population cohort that will be entering a stage of life when expenditures on pet products and services jump dramatically. As recently as 2014, households headed by Millennial consumers spent almost $11 billion on their pets.

Millennials as Pet Market Consumers analyzes trends in the growth of the population of Millennial pet owners, provides a demographic profile of Millennial pet owners, analyzes their attitudes toward their pets and highlights their pet care practices. The report highlights the consumer behavior of 18- to 34-year-old pet owners, including their buying power, retail channels favored for pet product purchases, shopping behavior and pet product preferences. It also includes an assessment of marketing approaches that work with Millennial pet owners.

Rockville, Md.-based Packaged Facts, a division of MarketResearch.com, publishes market intelligence on a wide range of consumer market topics, including consumer demographics and shopper insights, consumer financial products and services, consumer goods and retailing, consumer packaged goods, and pet products and services. Packaged Facts also offers a full range of custom research services