Is Carlton going downhill?

hmmm, they're not exactly a international force like yonex, and have gone downhill in the last 10/15 years in my opinion. altho you still see top players using their racquets, gail emms, nathan robertson, anthony clark, i think jonas / peter rasmussen uses a carlton and i've heard one of them has put their name on a new racquet which i saw on display at the english nationals and the all england.

they're just not as big a brand as yonex, who have really cornered the racquets and shuttles markets for badminton. there are a lot of other smaller brand, Forza - mainly danish players using, i would say similar for carlton, mainly british players using. black night - seems to be a favourite with the canadians, gosen - sponsor a national team (india?) team, babolat - sponsor the dutch team, ashaway... sponsor the malaysian team?

so as you can see it seems to be yonex internationally - and then a brand per country...

Neil

 

Smashing - I started back a couple of years ago after an 8 or so year break.

When I started Yonex was a minority brand, Karakal, Prince, Wilson, Fleet and Yehlex were all better represented in Scotland to the almost exclusion of Yonex.

Carlton was everything in my local racket specialist store, all the Scot's internationalists used them, all of the up and comers had them and everyone wanted them. Carlton used to do demo fayres and they pretty much had the market cornered.

Since starting back I have tried about 80-90% of the Carlton line up and it is rubbish, the rackets are nothing like they were and there seems no force behind them anymore (marketing etc) It is a total change around, now Yonex are everything. Marketing, desireability etc. They do give some players free rackets but I think the tactics with them giving coaches terms so they get discounts on 2 rackets and they have to have the YY visable at all times does more to turn the next generation to Yonex than anything else. In the UK Yonex sponsors all the top class tournaments and has a high visability presence when they are on giving the impression they are the bees knees.

Is there a company that can take that crown off them?

 

yonex, like other japanese companies, tend to have a longer business objective. Like toyota and honda, they were minor players in the beginning but they hang on while other brands become complacent. I think dunlop (carlton) dont care much because they see badminton sales is small relative to their tennis, golf, squash, basketball, etc sales. However, yonex thinks badminton is a minor sport internationally and have potential to grow as a sport and market domination. See the difference in business objectives?

 

It's a shame that Carlton is not focusing on their badminton division... From my personal experience, Carlton has provided some really good and cheap alternatives when compared to Yonex. For example, I was trying out my friends Carlton racquet, (don't remember the model, something 700 that he bought for 40$ CAN at Sport Chek) and it responded and performed better than some of the 50-90$ Yonex racquets I have used (eg. Cab 8200, Iso 63MF, 90 VF), even though it was still factory string!

But I guess that's a reflection of NA attitidues towards badminton..

 

Carlton has had several big problems. The first was the quality control of the Airblade series, which was appalling. I have seen (and owned) so many Carltons break in handles, shafts, etc -- strange defects that reveal poor quality control. They got a really bad name after that. When the Megaflex series came out, which actually seems to suffer less from these problems, most people had already abandoned the brand.

Another big problem was the decision to stick with oval heads. Isometric heads aren't necessary better, but that is what people seem to want these days. This was a big strategic mistake that Carlton is suffering from today. The badminton market is small, but the market for oval racquets is minute.

 

eeekks....hope my airblade pro is going to be ok. it has been hit on the floor a couple times, and some clashes, but looks ok now.....i'm not lending it to anybody then

 

Hey not that Yonex gives me too much confidence either...I've had a new ISO76VF broke after playing for only 10 minutes (on stock strings no less), and a CAB7 Long where its shaft just broke inside the handle and my racket flew away. I know they are cheap rackets, and the CAb broke after 2.5 years, but still.

And I like oval head

 

I dont know your playing level and power but i have seen these similar situation many times where some B+ and better players buy lower end yonex like isometric 60 light, VF76, Ti3 and brakes them. Some goes swearing *&^&%$#@)_# over yonex and some understood what's coming. Analogy: It's like you buy a toyota echo and goes rally racing for 6 hrs nonstop and then you swear at toyota !&^%$(*&#$% because the stock tire goes flat and stock suspension fails

 

That's exactly my point...I never said I blame Yonex too much, in fact I loved that CAB 7 and I'm getting a MP77 soon. But I'm just saying that rackets from any company breaks, it's not like Yonex is perfect and Carlton racket sucks, like my yonex for example.

but the ISO breaking after 10 minutes really pissed me off you'd be mad too if your Echo blew up before you got home from your dealer

 

unlike toyota, u can get a brand new vf76 (or credit for an upgrade) from your authorized dealer if u truly broke it in 10 mins. Even toyota doesnt have that kind of warranty.

 

this could be why dunlop is slowly rising in popularity here with its agressive marketing. more and more players are swearing by it. i wondered why a company would compete with itself in terms of their products. now i see why.

 

sounds like a case of Carlton not going uphill fast enough to keep up. I don't think they are coming out with worse stuff than before...

 

i've had my as-1 for nearly 4 years now and it hasn't even broke yet, even though i'm a pretty agressive player. so i think it's just luck that you would get a defected raquet, they should have a warrenty program