I am just wondering, out of all the major manufacturers, what kind of market shares do they hold? I would imagine that in many places of the world, and in many different areas (racquets, strings, shuttles, shoes, etc.), Yonex is kicking butt in a major way. However, while Yonex claims that Yonex strings are the choice of 95.8% of Sydney Olympic Medalists (from their website), Gosen is the biggest string manufacturer in the world. Also, how do the smaller or domestic manufacturers fare in this? how do they survive when some gigantic company has an overwhelming dominance in the badminton scene? -Rick
lol, I feel sorry sometime for wilson or pro kennex for making badminton racquets cus i dont know anybody buy their racquet. they should stick to tennis and make more profit.
Wilson sells lots of racquets... low end racquets anyway. For people who don't want to spend more than $20... they usually pick either Carlton of Wilson I'd guesstimate. Though i've used lower end wilsons before and they are horrible. Their $20 steel racquets vibrate more than a tuning fork... and i've held my share of tuning forks! Even the $5 Carltons racquets were much better. Though I suppose Wilson's had better string... or maybe it was bad string but I couldn't tell how bad because it was virbrating so badly. Come to think of it, the only reason why anyone would by Wilson is because of their reputation in Tennis... and that movie.. you know... Wilson the volleyball
not all wilson rackets are crappy......their newer range especially the hypercarbon series are pretty good though the same cant be said bout their strings on yonex's claim ......think its true coz most of the world players are under their contract.....in other words paid to use their products juz like ronaldo uses nike n beckham uses adidas
Actually, in Taiwan, we have a lot of small manufacturers like winex, mmoa, victor and fleet. They usually start their business by OEM for yonex, and when they had enough knowledge, they came out to sell their own product in their brandname.. So we have a lot of choices similar to yonex but much cheaper. Usually in taiwan, the price of yonex is double compared to similar product of other brands. Usually the national players are also sponsered by those companys, not yonex.I also see a lot of my partners I played with use those product, and they are kind of medium to advanced players. So I think the market share of yonex in Taiwan is pretty low.
Well, ProKennex surely don't have too much a share in north america, but it taks fairly amount in China, HK, and some European nations. Also, as of my knowledge, ProKennex Ti ULX and Kinetic ULX (own one, broken, and it's discont. ) are surely not crappy designs. With fairly cheaper price compare to yonex, the performance is still amazing. Before I broke mine, it was one of the top choices in my bag.
i'd half to agree, the new Wilson Hyper whatevers are not completely terrible, but seem to cater to people who like big smashes and not control. but if wilson is to shrug off its crap racquet reputation its got a lot of work to do.
I never said Wilson or Pro kennex racquets were bad. Wilson Hammer or Pro kennex ULX looks pretty decent. They both have Titanium or Titanium Mesh or High Modulus Graphite mold in. But it seem to me even they have these later advancement of racquets people arent still considering their racket. I dont know their sales on Badminton racquets, but im guessing its pretty low. I think Carlton, Winex, Gosen, Prince are doing alright.
Actually, I think Black Knight is doing ok in Canada. When I go to different clubs in Toronto and Vancouver, I generally at least see a few people using BK racquets (me being one of them). Also, BK badminton nets seem to be somewhat popular among local clubs as well. -Rick
talking bout market share .....over in malaysia it's proace and yonex thats dominant even though the malaysian national players uses gosen.I can find proace rackets in almost every store that sells rackets and can see ppl using proace whenever I play badminton.In fact several shop owners actually highly recommends proace over yonex....1 of them has been playing badminton for over 40 years and have 6-8 proace rackets.oh... he also have a wooden dunlop badminton racket that he hangs up proudly in his shop
In fact, Pro Kennex was very popular in Asia, especially Hong Kong in late 1980s. Most of my friends had one or two Pro Kennex. I remember the popular model was Carbonate 787. Before, Pro Kennex, Kawasaki was extremely popular which had almost 50% market shares besides Yonex. They were good rackets. The Kawasaki's bright yellow long racket cover (at that time, Yonex had cover for the frame only.) with the red cap of the grip was very badminton players' dream racket.
I think it's more or less depend on the geo region. Many local brands (for example, Kason in China) were one of the tops choices for their local players. However, how many these rackets being imported in north america market? I think Pro Kennex still owns some share in china, hk, but surely not any close (besides some beginners' series) in US.
So who are the big players in North America then? Here in Vancouver, Canada, I only see Yonex (obviously), Black Knight, Carlton, and the ocassional Gosen at various badminton stores. -Rick
By Price of average racquet: Yonex Black Knight Wilson Carlton Techno By Selection: Yonex Carlton Techno Black Knight Wilson
In North America, for expensive rackets, people prefer Yonex, Carlton for cheap racket people tend to buy cheap Yonex, and Prince rackets.
I've been to many many sports stores, in Canada, and have NEVER seen prince badminton racquets offered for sale by any store (big or small.) I think prince may only be popular in the US or mexico but definetly not in Canada. I've only seen one guy use prince in my entire badminton experience in Canada, and it was an old racquet from long long ago.
BRL i've seen prince in toronto before, national sports.. but that was a long time ago. i heard that prince stopped making badminton racquets for a while.. but it seems with new ones coming out they have started again? i have a prince badminton racquet. they are quite unique.. mine is very robust.. its lasted much thrashing.
I've been to two national sports locations (weston, sheppard locations) and didn't see them. Maybe they are more common in east Toronto? The Champion/SportChek stores in yorkdale, eatons, and sherway doesn't have them. SportMart doesn't have them in weston and sherway locations either. Of the specialty shops i been to, i don't recall seeing them there either! maybe it's because they need to reestablish their brand here I suppose.