---
title: ECHO, Home Depot, and the Shifting Balance of the OPE Market
description: Despite market headwinds, the string trimmer category continues to anchor the Outdoor Power Equipment market, with steady demand masking major shifts in sales channels, power mix, and competitive dynamics. Learn more ...
---

[Blog | HIRI ](https://www.hiri.org/blog)

# [ECHO, Home Depot, and the Shifting Balance of the OPE Market](https://www.hiri.org/blog/echo-home-depot-and-the-shifting-balance-of-the-ope-market)

 Written by [HIRI](https://www.hiri.org/blog/author/admin) | Oct 3, 2025 2:00:00 PM

### Market Resilience and the Role of String Trimmers

Despite inflationary pressures and looming tariffs, the Outdoor Power Equipment (OPE) category* has demonstrated resilience. On a dollar basis, string trimmers consistently account for 12-13% of OPE sales between 2020 and 2025, placing them as a mid-tier category by revenue, larger than handheld chainsaws or hedge trimmers but smaller than mowers. On a unit basis, however, string trimmers are the market leader. With over 20% of OPE units sold between 2021 and 2025, they rival walk-behind mowers in volume. The high unit share highlights string trimmers as both a gateway product and a volume anchor for brands, making even modest share shifts significant in dollar terms.*

*Defined here as all powered lawn tools excluding generators and pressure washers*

**

### String Trimmers Retailer and Brand Dynamics

Retail­er strate­gies shape how these shifts play out. Home Depot’s 2020 reset removed EGO, cen­ter­ing bat­tery around RYOBI, Mil­wau­kee, and DeWalt while lean­ing on ECHO for gas. Lowe’s dou­bled down on EGO exclu­siv­i­ty, giv­ing it an edge in bat­tery. Home Depot still dom­i­nates, with 47% mar­ket share in 2025, while Lowe’s hov­ers around 20%. Ama­zon is climb­ing, from 8% in 2021 to 13% in 2025.

On the brand side, RYOBI leads but is sliding (25% in 2021 to 17% in 2025). ECHO holds steady at 12-14%, resilient in a competitive market. EGO doubled its share from 6% to 11%, aided by Lowe’s. Milwaukee and DeWalt are edging up, while Craftsman declined from 11% to 7%. There is some consolidation happening in the string trimmer industry with the longtail of brands shrinking to 27%.

### ECHO in a Down Market

From Jan­u­ary through August 2025, over­all string trim­mer sales declined 4% year-over-year, yet ECHO grew 8%, mak­ing it one of the few brands gain­ing in a down mar­ket. RYOBI, Crafts­man and DeWalt all saw Y/Y sales declines. The oth­er large brands which saw an increase in sales Y/Y were EGO and Mil­wau­kee. This means ECHO not only defend­ed its base but also out­per­formed the mar­ket, climb­ing into the clear #2 posi­tion and gain­ing share while many peers contracted.

#### The Home Depot Effect

ECHO’s recent gains are ampli­fied by its deep­ened part­ner­ship with The Home Depot. After Home Depot’s 2020 OPE reset, which removed EGO from its shelves and con­sol­i­dat­ed bat­tery lead­er­ship with RYOBI, Mil­wau­kee, and DeWalt, ECHO emerged as the go-to gas brand while selec­tive­ly scal­ing its bat­tery portfolio.

While the mar­ket has seen a shift away from gas string trim­mers (from 34% in 2022 to 31% in 2025), The Home Depot’s gas string trim­mer mar­ket share has been a bit more resilient, only drop­ping half a per­cent­age point over the same period.

In gas string trim­mers, ECHO’s dom­i­nance is clear, climb­ing from 63% share in 2022 to 83% in 2025. In all trim­mers com­bined, ECHO has advanced from 23% to 30% over the same peri­od, while RYOBI slid from 44% to 37%. Mil­wau­kee made mod­est gains, but ECHO is vis­i­bly clos­ing the gap.

Bat­tery trim­mers remain more com­pet­i­tive, with RYOBI still at near­ly half of sales, Mil­wau­kee surg­ing to a quar­ter, and DeWalt steady around one-fifth. ECHO’s share here is still small, but it has near­ly dou­bled year-over-year, sig­nal­ing trac­tion for its 56V eFORCE platform.

### Top String Trimmers at Home Depot in 2025

**Unit­ed States, Online + B&M, Jan­u­ary 2025 — August 2025***  
Source: E‑Receipt Data, In-Store Receipt Data, Credit/​Debit Card Data, and Web­scraped Data*

1. ECHO 21.2cc Gas 2‑Stroke Straight Shaft String Trim­mer (Mar­ket Share 6.2%)
2. RYOBI 40V 15 in. Expand-It Cord­less Bat­tery String Trim­mer (Mar­ket Share 5.3%)
3. Mil­wau­kee M18 Fuel 18V 16 in. Brush­less Cord­less String Trim­mer (Mar­ket Share 2.7%)

### What This Means for Retailers and Brands

For retail­ers and brands, string trim­mers demon­strate how sta­ble cat­e­go­ry demand can mask sig­nif­i­cant shifts in pow­er mix and com­pet­i­tive dynam­ics. The steady move toward bat­tery requires assort­ment adjust­ments, while ECHO’s recent gains high­light the impor­tance of strong retail part­ner­ships. Stay­ing aligned with these trends will be key to sus­tain­ing growth in the OPE market.

Inter­est­ed in see­ing more use cas­es for this data or insights from anoth­er cat­e­go­ry? The Yip­it­Da­ta team will be at the HIRI Sum­mit on Octo­ber 22 – 23, 2025. Sched­ule time to con­nect with our team live at the event. Oth­er­wise, fill out the form at the fol­low­ing link and an insights ana­lyst will reach out soon.

 

**[Con­nect with our team](https://www.yipitdata.com/companies/event/hiri-summit-2025?) at the 2025 HIRI Insights Sum­mit in Chica­go** or **[Reach out to one of our Ana­lysts](https://www.yipitdata.com/companies/request-form?utm_source=report&utm_medium=campaign&utm_campaign=701PL00000rstUFYAY&utm_content=E1).**

## [About YipitData](https://www.yipitdata.com/companies/overview?utm_source=report&utm_medium=campaign&utm_campaign=701PL00000rstUFYAY&utm_content=E1)

With over 205 mil­lion home improve­ment data points annu­al­ly, Yip­it­Da­ta offers the most accu­rate and gran­u­lar insights into OPE and oth­er home improve­ment sec­tors. By com­bin­ing mul­ti­ple data sources with pre­dic­tive mod­el­ing, Yip­it­Da­ta deliv­ers action­able intel­li­gence with min­i­mal lag, enabling brands and retail­ers to make informed, data-dri­ven decisions.

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