The tennis division is definitely NOT subsidizing the badminton division in North American. The tennis market share that Yonex receives is far too small (WAY behind Babolat, Wilson, Head, Prince, Dunlop). The USA is the largest individual market for Tennis and Yonex STRUGGLES in that market.
Only few will complain later on, its not the main issue. Its not about being a man or gay. I can not find any profesional sport other than badminton that have the same constraint and the contractual issue that badminton pros face. A footballer can be sponsored by Addidas at club level while he will be wearing Nike for the national team. Roger federer uses Wilson racket while wearing Nike shirt, whereas LD can not wear a YY shoe because CHN nat team is sponsored by LN. In badminton, once you signed, from head to toe you are covered. Well I just think that badminton pros deserve to get more, thats all. The national teams have been in the past made YY advertising easy and cheap. It was possible cos YY was "the only" company, but i guess things have changed and IMO national teams around the world should have a bigger bargaining power in negotiating with YY.
'should' only works in your idealized world. Since badminton isn't yet a mainstream pro sport, u,national team nor players can not go around asking sponsors they 'should' do this and that.
i said 'profit'. Business exist because of profit. Business with great revenue but without profit don't last too long...
Yonex's net profit for the year ended Mar 31, 2010 was US$6.5 million. Li Ning's net profit for the year ended Dec 31, 2009 was US$138 million.
well they can now. im sure LN is eager to sponsor more nat team, if they can provide more than YY, why not?
6.5m net profit is a very small figure for a company like Yonex. Li Ning's figure is small for it's kind of establishments in China. I would expect them to profit at least between 200m - 400m. But i guess there is many figures that the floating around.
Both Yonex and Li Ning are limited companies, one traded in Tokyo the other in Hong Kong. Every shareholder knows their financial statements. BTW, Li Ning's profit increased 33% over last year, but Yonex's declined.
Yonex's US$6.5 million profit for year ended Mar 31, 2010 is based on latest estimates by financial analysts. Actual results will be announced in May, 2010. BTW, analysts estimate Yonex's full year results for year ended Mar 31. 2010 are sales to be 38 billion yen, profts 600 million yen, down 3% and 62%, respectively, over the previous year.
doesnt that happen in Canada as well, i have been efendi signed with black knight and still wearing yonex shoes. i thought sponsors agreements do not require the player to wear their shoes (assuming.. ergonomics issues)... i mean its best that the player wear all of the sponsored stuff but players have the right to care about their own physical being as well. wow based on those estimations... yonex seriously need to upgrade their R&D... as the picture showing that it seems like yonex isnt monopolizing the badminton market anymore.. in any aspects of the product line, they need to figure out how to be less fancy with their names.. (this isnt a fashion industry) and i think they should change their policies in sales (i.e.: warranty and the market targets). esp. when we see all the time that people are having difficulty in buying the 'high-end' racquet.. a possible price adjust MIGHT attract more people to buy it.
i believe the thread title or objective was about yonex markdet share in BADMINTON. LN business covers more area than yonex, of course they make more money. Lets discuss about badminton market share.
YY have themselves to blame.... their marketing staff service is well known in the (M'sia) market.... arrogant, slow, insolent, impertinent...... fw yrs back if u wanna claim a defective YY racket it's more difficult than scaling mt. everest.... even now they have improved, but it's kind of late... as far as regular die hard players are concerned if u do observe carefully less than 20% are using YY they r more likely to use victor, apacs, prince, fleet........(these r the popular brands) i for one have been using prince since 2001 last yr i bought 1 new prince n the frame cracked on my first court play the shop owner replaced me another one without saying a word.... strung on the spot a new racket for me....
Never knew that there would be so many debates here when I created this thread. I feel sorry for those Yonex die-hard fans. After reading all the posts here, I just want to stress that no matter how success a brand is in the past, if it doesn't come up with a good product at COMPETITVE pricing and good service, it will be shifted out of the market eventually. This is the rule of free market.
This is not unusual. The big boys are not so desperate for business; the small ones will do anything to get your business. Also, being bigger also risks being abused with unjustified claims for racquet breakage. Most racquet breakage claims are actually due to misuse or improper stringing. Also, Yonex and the other big boys do honor any racquet claims but not at the retail level-only to big distributors without questions being asked.
Fair enough, so how about taking out all Yonex's non-badminton stuff? It may surprise everyone that Yonex biggest business may not be badminton racquets but badminton shoes that are all made in China. Today, racquet manufacturers will be mad or insane if they don't contract out to China all their racquets manufacturing. If Yonex continues racquet manufacturing in Japan I will bet with anyone they will not survive for another 10 or less years.
That's why you see lower end rackets of YY are made in China or Taiwan. But I am pretty sure that the top of the range rackets will still be manufactured in Japan in the future. Canon is still surviving right? The whole of their DSLR range and the top end DCs are made in Japan (although recent QC has been disappointing....). Talking about shoes, do most of the badminton shoes from various brands actually pumped out from the very same factory? taneepak, do you know about the details?
