Most American Households Will Celebrate Christmas With An Artificial Christmas Tree

Los Angeles, December 10, 2012…Eighty-three percent of U.S. households that will display a Christmas tree this season will display an artificial Christmas tree, up from 79 percent in 2011,according to a study commissioned by the American Christmas Tree Association (ACTA), conducted by Nielsen. Twenty-three percent will display a real Christmas tree.

Nielsen polled nearly 30,000 households for the study.

Other key findings included the following:

Nearly two-thirds of all American households will celebrate Christmas with an artificial Christmas tree; Eighteen percent of all households will display a real Christmas tree More than 50 percent of all households displaying an artificial Christmas tree plan to display their tree for 10 years or more Nearly six percent of all households that will display a tree will display both a real and an artificial Christmas tree Sixteen percent of all households displaying an artificial Christmas tree will display more than one artificial tree Nearly 22 million real Christmas trees will be sold this year and nearly 12 million artificial trees will be sold The average cost consumers paid for a real tree was $45; the average cost of an artificial tree was $80.00

"The data show that while the tradition of displaying a real Christmas tree continues for many American households, manyare embracing artificial Christmas trees as an important part of their holiday celebration," said Jami Warner, Executive Director of ACTA.  "They see the value in being able to reuse their artificial Christmas tree season after season."

About ACTA: The American Christmas Tree Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing consumers with factual information about Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry. For more information, please visit www.christmastreeassociation.org.

American Christmas Tree Association calculation based in part on data reported by Nielsen through its PanelViews Survey service, sourced from the Omnibus survey sent to a representative subset of households on the Homescan Panel based on the total US market; the findings referenced are from the survey fielded from November 1 – 26, 2012.  Copyright © 2012, The Nielsen Company.