Pet food, pet care insights from Global Pet Expo 2025

The global pet care market is growing. That’s not a surprise — it’s been the case for some time now — yet new data from NielsenIQ (NIQ) presented during Global Pet Expo 2025 offered some twists. For example:

• In 2024, Europe contributed the most to global pet care growth: 52%, vs. 33% for North America, the next largest contributor by region. The emerging regions of Latin America, Asia Pacific and Africa/Middle East contributed 6%, 1% and 9%, respectively. Europe and North America are the largest pet care and pet food regions by far, so it makes sense that their growth would contribute more to global growth; it’s just a change to see these developed regions outpacing the others in terms of growth.
• The ongoing rise in pet ownership among gen Z means households globally increasingly have a mix of types of pets. (The American Pet Products Association, organizer of Global Pet Expo, reported the same thing in their update on U.S. pet ownership.)
• Echoing data from other sources, NIQ reported that cats are leading the way in terms of pet ownership growth globally; in fact, more than one in four households worldwide now include a cat.

1 billion pets around the world

Sam Smith, associate client director, pet manufacturing and consumer product goods for NIQ, said the number of pets owned globally now numbers 1 billion, and pets are in 56.1% of households across 18 countries tracked by GFK Consumer Life, a division of NIQ.