a few years back, batches of rackets that were bought from the SE Asia region started bearing the "IP" racket code. the "IP" instantly created a mystery. the fact that it is distributed in the Sunrise region make us associated it with "SP", yet having the "I" and "P" made people think that it is for Indonesia National Player similar to how CP is associated with Chinese National Player (ie. Chinese national team). as it turns out, the speculation are all just speculations and not true. today i talked to a well respected owner of a badminton store. the store has been around for over 25 years, and the owner has always have a close relationship with Yonex Sunrise all those times. a little digression for those who are not aware. Yonex Sunrise is the major distributor of Yonex equipment in many of the South East Asian markets, including the largest ones, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. so large is the influence of Sunrise, their racket have a "SP" designation printed in the racket shaft. said shop owner upon seeing IP distributed coded rackets in the market, asked his close friends in Sunrise, the Yonex Sunrise marketing manager told him what it meant. IP actually stands for International Pacific. rackets printed with IP code have no specific distribution in mind when manufactured. you can consider the IP code to be a generic distribution code. when Yonex have extra racket manufacturing capacity, yet they don't have any allocation for a specific distribution code in mind, they will mark it with IP. therefore, it is possible to find IP rackets in non-Sunrise distribution region. when demand arises in a certain region, Yonex will simply ship these IP coded rackets to fill the demand quickly. so there it is. the reason behind the IP code. I also asked the shop about what SP actually, stand for, previously, most of us speculate that it is Singapore, but some have also said it maybe South Pacific. the answer i got? Singapore. so SP == Singapore that's all i got for now.
you will have to give it back to your original store who will then have it handled by the distributor. the presence of your receipt will be enough to identify where it was originally purchased. and it will be according to the warranty policy of that distributor.
I got a question.Then,how come IP rackets only come from indonesia,hongkong n malaysia then.Inc what's sold in china,mainly from hongkong.I mean,the countries that distributes them.If it's international region,all the yonex representative across the globe should have them in their stock.In fact,the countries that sells IP is also the countries who has SP distributed among them.So,if IP does not stand for indonesian player,then it should be meant to cover the stock of SP if they r out of stock,instead of the whole globe.
It is probably from these locations that they need the most stock, as badminton is the most popular in this area. Thus, most/all of the extra IP rackets are routed to steady the supply that is in constant need, while in Europe, Africa, Australia, and the Americas, there is not such a great demand.
oh. he also mentioned that, since IP is a generic code, therefore they don't bear any "SP-ness" in them. ie. no SP on the shaft, and no PBSI logo. do let me know if there are exceptions to this.
assuming that the JP coded rackets are top end and SP as low end quality wise. would IP be the same EQUAL to SP?
Its all marketing. Many people claim different things. Some IPs are sold in the market but some are not. Some claim that they are close with Sunrise.. which in fact it may or may not be true. But knowing how Sunrise do their work... only a few will know.
Malaysian and Sporean Team also uses IP. HKG team also uses IP. Philippine Team also uses IP. Not only Indonesian Team.
