Hi,
I'm hoping that someone might be able to help. I'm trying to find research on the RC hobby industry and have had trouble finding any substantial market date. Specifically I'm looking for:
# of stores that sell RC
# of units of battery powered RC
# of units of Nitro powered RC
$ of Nitro powered RC industry
$ of hobby battery powered RC industry
% of RC cars vs. trucks vs. planes vs. boats
Seasonality of sales for hobby RC
Price points for hobby RC
Age/demographics of hobby RC purchasers

I'm specifically looking for US market data, but will take whatever I can get...even if it's anecdotal.

If anyone knows of any worthwhile sources, reports, etc. I would be most appreciative.

Thanks!

Generally the RC magazines have that type of data available. They normally will provide a demographics and information packet to companies that are interested in advertising in their magazine. Might be a place to start...

Thanks, hankster. In your opinion is RC Driver the best place to start or are there other mags that you would recommend?

RCCA (radio control car action) is probably the largest rc magazine and would have the most info (although RCDriver is the far superior magazine, imo). The RCCA sie is here:
http://www.rccaraction.com/

I'd be interested in what you find, if you would care to post it here when you're done.
Brian

I would contact all of them so you can compare the info. Each magazine has different readership and could easily have different stats.

Haven't had too much luck - several messages went unanswered, but I did find out that RC Driver claims a circulation of 150,000 and RC Car Action claims 350,000.

The other thing I'm trying to figure out is ballpark the number of RC hobbyists are in the US. I suppose I could use the magazine circulation as a very rough surrogate, but I suspect that it's more than that. Any other ideas or opinions?