How many scuba divers worldwide?

[alberto_pm]

Hi,

i am interesting in finding out an estimate about the number of scuba divers worldwide? Hay anyone got a hint or a helpful source of info?

Regards,
Alberto.

 

[Walter]

No one knows and no one will ever know. Folks have been SCUBA diving for over 65 years. Some have never been certified, others have multiple certifications. Many have died, many have stopped diving, many stopped for decades, then started again. There is no way to know or to even get an accurate estimate.

 

[Shark3000]

I estimate to a few millions, there are several hundred thousand instructors.

 

[fisheater]

You'll also have to define "diver." If you mean somehow who is certified, you'll get a MUCH larger number than if mean someone who actually dives.

 

[almitywife]

we can start a count....

me is 1



im pretty postive this is a impossible question to answer btw

 

[knotical]

Recent figures from PADI:
Currently certifying approximately 900,000 new divers each year.
They say they certify 50-70% of new divers world wide.

Doesn’t answer your question, but then you didn’t define diver (certified? active? etc.)

The answer is unknowable, but the above info can give you a very rough ball park.
< e.g. probably millions, but still a tiny portion of the total population >

edit: I went back to the source. The 900,000 certs is total certs. New diver certs is more like 550,000. My bad.

 

[NudeDiver]

PADI certifies almost 1M/year? Wow. That's a lot more than I would have thought.

If you multiply that times, say, 30 years - that's about 30M right there. I know, I know, but it's not really an estimate as much as a guesstimate. You have to guess based on SOMETHING. It seems like 30-50M is a reasonable guess of the number of people who have made 4 dives or more in their lives, recreationally.

Now, if you want to define as, the number of people who will make 5 or more dives over the next 12 months (excluding those who only do the 4 OW cert dives), you'll certainly get a much smaller number - but it still is probably more than I would have guessed, based on the PADI cert numbers.

 

[knotical]

PADI said they've issued a total of 15.6 million certs. Obviously fewer in their earlier years. Assuming a similar ratio of total certs to new-diver certs, they probably did around 8 million entry level certs.

Sorry, NudeDiver, for the earlier incorrect information.

 

[alberto_pm]

I am not trying to get an exact estimate, just some rough numbers to estimate on.

So, for example, basing on the numbers provided by knotical:

PADI:
* estimates to have 50-70% of certifications worldwide
* has about 15 million certificates

From those, there will be people that have multiple certificates, e.g. OWD & AOWD, etc.
We could estimate that would be maybe 8 million people (around 50%) certified by PADI.

If we think that PADI has 50-70% of the certifications share together with SSI, CMAS and others we would come up with around 11 million certificied divers.

Of course, of those only a fraction will be active.

This is i guess a very bad estimate but it helps me to guess that most probably there are a few million divers, not 20 million and not just 100.000.

Some people might think this is just nonsense, but it's interesting for me and also helpful if you are trying to setup a business around diving (let's say an online shop for divegear) you need to calculate estimates on how big your potential market is...

Of course the more facts you want to take into account the worst the estimate. So, for the example of the online shop you online want to take into account divers that have internet access and would ever consider buying on the internet.

Anyway, i'll stop now. I think i might writing a lot of crap and dont know if anyone will find it interesting... If someone has any other helpful numbers please post them.

Cheers!

 

[Walter]

I think i might writing a lot of crap

No arguments there.

Don't forget a whole bunch of folks never dive again after getting certified. You can't count them. Others dive for a short while, then stop diving forever. You can't count them. Of those 15 million (PADI's been around since the mid 60s), how many are even still alive? You can't count those who've died. My guess is there are a lot fewer divers than any estimates we're ever shown.