The water filtration market expanded 25% from 2015-20 to just over $1 billion in sales. More recently, the market benefitted from pandemic circumstance as consumer demand surged for products to improve home, health and safety, producing single-year sales growth of 20.8% from 2019-20. Mintel forecasts the market will return to a normal pattern of incremental growth, due to long purchase cycles and consumers’ curbed discretionary spending amid the recession.

• The pandemic health crisis led to a significant sales jump for the water filtration market, driven by consumers’ heightened focus on health, hygiene and safety.

• While the water filtration category managed to stay afloat during the last recession, spurred by growing concerns about municipal water quality, Mintel predicts the category will struggle to perform to the same caliber this recession due to a larger degree of cautionary spending.

• Product development and marketing strategies that leverage health, safety and taste have the greatest opportunity for success.

This Report covers water filtration devices and systems that are used in the home and are available to consumers through supermarkets, mass merchandisers, hardware stores, home centers and specialized dealers.

The following water filtration products are covered in The Market and Market Share sections:

• Pour-through pitchers

• Faucet mounts

• Portable bottles with built-in filters

• Replacement filters for these products

Professional or built-in systems are excluded from The Market and Market Share sections. Some systems that consumers can install themselves (such as countertop filtration systems) are also excluded from these sections. However, they are addressed and discussed in the consumer sections of this report. These include:

• Under-sink filtration systems

• Countertop filtration systems

• Built-in dispensers in refrigerators

• Whole house filtration systems that are built into the plumbing

This Report excludes shower heads with water filtration capabilities and purification devices that are used for outdoor purposes, such as backpack units for campers/hikers.

This Report was written October 1-25, 2020. Consumer research for this Report was fielded in August 2020 and therefore reflects consumer attitudes and behaviors during the COVID-19 outbreak.

The first COVID-19 case was confirmed in the US in January 2020. On March 11, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global health pandemic, and on March 13, President Trump declared a national emergency in the US.

Across the US, state-level stay-at-home orders rolled out throughout the months of March and April, and nonessential businesses and school districts across the nation closed or shifted to remote operations. At the time of writing, all 50 states have relaxed restrictions, allowing businesses to operate with varying levels of social distancing measures in place. However, a resurgence of COVID-19 infections has driven some states to slow down or reverse course on reopening plans.