Despite a decline in demand for residential aged care, the Australian aged care market continues to grow, largely due to an increase in home care.

As of 30 June 2020, there was a total of 335,889 people living in residential aged care, 142,436 accessing home care services and 840,000 accessing the Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP).

The home care market, has experienced significant growth due to government policy and consumer preference to remain at home for as long as possible.

Demand for residential aged care continues to decline which has resulted in a continuing drop in occupancy levels. Further, 58 percent of providers reported an operating loss in FY21. Despite these challenging conditions, the Australian aged care market has continued to grow which can be attributed to providers seeking to reach the right economies of scale, growing their brand reputation and footprint and seeking greater influence in the sector.

Since 2017 KPMG has conducted an in-depth analysis of the aged care market, focusing on the financial performance of the top 25 providers by market share across home care and residential aged care over the past five years. The aged care market remains highly fragmented with 735 providers delivering residential aged care and 906 providers delivering home care services (at 30 June 2021), and the top 10 providers maintain almost 25 percent of market share across both residential and home care.