Abstract
The ability of a modified logistic model for forecasting the growth of durable consumer goods in China was investigated. The fitting of the modified logistic model to the historical data uses a pattern search technique to establish the optimum parameter values. Two data sets on the quantity of air conditioner owned per 100 urban households at year-end and color TV set owned per 100 rural households at year-end were analyzed in this work. Additionally, the logistic model was applied to the same data. Both two models were compared using their goodness of fit to the historical data. The comparison has revealed that the modified logistic model is more appropriate for describing the growth of durable consumer goods in China.