2.1. Extent of product development and modification by consumers
Representative national surveys of citizens above age 18 in the UK, US, and Japan, show that millions of individuals in each of these nations develop or modify consumer products to better serve their personal needs (von Hippel et al., 2011). In the UK, the fraction of user innovators was found to be 6.1% of the population, in the US it was 5.2%, and in Japan it was 3.7%. The scope of consumer innovation in all three nations was found to be very broad, ranging from improvements to vehicles, to products used in patient homecare, to improvements in sporting products. In the UK, von Hippel et al. (2012) estimated that consumer-developers on average spent 7.1 days and £1098 out-of-pocket costs per year. At the macro-level and when evaluating person days at average UK workforce salaries, total annual spending by con-sumers on innovation was estimated to £3.2 billion. In comparison, estimated annual R&D expenditures by companies on consumer products were £2.2 billion. Similar findings have been reported for the US and Japan (von Hippel et al., 2011). These findings show that both the scale and scope of user innovation is substantial.