EU Weather markets: a EU-28 perspective from 2010 to 2020 and beyond

PRIMET has conducted a market research study on the weather services market in the EU-28 countries for the period of 2010-2020, including National and Private Weather services providers. The study covers annual revenue, employee numbers and segments of market activities. The study does not include the market for meteorological instruments, nor down-stream markets with integrators of meteorology information, such as insurances, agriculture and others.

The study identifies the market activity in each country by the 5 classes described below and makes some projections for the next decade.

a. monopolistic: private sector not allowed, only National Hydro-Meteorological Service (NHMS; state agency) allowed to provide weather services;

b. centralistic: private sector allowed, but NHMS is main provider of weather services and does not provide the necessary base data to private sector, so no, or only very few private companies exist (e.g. Romania);

c. oligopolistic: private sector allowed, NHMS provides the necessary base data to private sector, but influences rules and exerts strong commercial competition in the market place, so private companies are disadvantaged in the competition (e.g. France);

d. polipolistic: private sector allowed, NHMS provides all necessary base data to private sector, and is commercially active in some segments, without unfair competition in the market place (e.g. Germany);

e. free: private sector allowed, NHMS provides all the necessary base data to private sector as open data and is NOT commercially active (e.g. USA);

The research was undertaken independently by Prof. Dr. Christian Gruninger-Hermann of Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University Loerrach. Prof Gruninger-Hermann is a specialist in the fields of digital transformation and business models, Ecommerce, trade management and market research.

PRIMET is a pan European Trade Association for meteorological service providers operating in the private sector. It aims to promote a fair trading environment between the public and private sector in meteorology and its related disciplines.