For anyone who is still wondering whether there is a business out there in aging-related products and services, forward this item from today's NY Times to them. Royal Philips, the Dutch industrial giant (approximately $37.5 billion in revenue per year), is convinced that the 'world is getting older.' A company shrinking by shedding businesses and 30% revenue, Philips is instead buying and building up other growth business areas, including energy-saving lightbulbs, but also its Lifeline PERS business for home and healthcare monitoring.
Philips has 60% of the US PERS market and 720,000 elderly constituents (at $35-45/month service charge), growing at 10% per year, net of any falloff. They dominate the market, but not the population. 13% of the US population is age 65+ and more than 4 million are 85+. Seems like some headroom there, despite all of the reasons why seniors wouldn't want to be seen as owning a PERS device, or use it if they owned it, etc.
Any way you look at it, with the baby boomers not getting any younger, so to speak, Philips is right to perceive this a growth market, and further factoring in the not-so-healthy aspects of an aging boomer-dom, this is as close to a recession-proof long-term opportunity as any known today.
