In Friday’s edition of This Week in CFD I linked to an article that discussed a report from Reportstack entitled Global Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Market 2014-2018 in which the market is forecast to grow at 12.85%. I wrote that I thought that number was contrived.
Upon reflection, that comment is unwarranted and I apologize for impuning the integrity of Reportstack. I have no reason not to believe their forecast. Please note that I’m doing this proactively – no one from Reportstack or anywhere else called me out. I identified my own mistake.
What I should’ve written was that quoting growth rates in a market forecast to two decimal places makes me think the authors don’t understand the concept of significant digits and are trying too hard to make their forecast appear rigorously analytic and believable. What’s wrong with just saying 12%?
This is the statement from the web site:
“The analysts forecast that the Global CFD market to grow at a CAGR of 12.85 percent over the period 2013-2018.”
Or course to some extent it is contrived. Rest assured no one has any idea how economies will behave in 2015, and definitely not any year after that. Also, CFD is a mature industry. If you haven’t seen this growth rate in the past, I highly doubt you’ll see it in the future. So, what has the historical growth rate of CFD been?