Babolat has launched the first “connected” tennis racquet in the market, allowing professionals and amateurs to measure their performance in many different ways, besides just scoring points against their competitors, to help improve their game. After a successful soft launch in the U.S. last Dec. 4, it will be introduced in France during the Roland-Garros tennis tournament in May and rolled out to other countries over the balance of this year.
According to Eric Babolat, chairman and chief executive of the French company that carries his family's name, everybody will be playing with connected racquets in ten years' time. Noting that similar types of personal electronic scoring systems have already been introduced in running, fitness and other types of sports, he predicted that badminton racquets and tennis and badminton shoes will also be eventually connected in the future. He also expressed confidence that more young people will be attracted to the game of tennis through the new system in this age of electronic connectivity.
The new “Babolat Play” system is the fruit of six years of research and development by Babolat and a French software company, Movea. Both have registered patents. This should not prevent other brands of tennis racquets from coming up with their own “smart” systems at some point, but Babolat is happy to have be a pioneer in this new segment of the tennis market, as it was in the introduction of tennis strings back in 1875.
As we have previously reported, Babolat presented the initial prototype of a connected racquet just before the Roland-Garros tournament in the spring of 2012. It has fined-tuned it since then, developing sensors in the handle of the racquet that measure numerous parameters of the player's game through impact locators and in other ways. The data are recorded and can subsequently be transferred by Bluetooth or through a USB port to a tablet, a computer or a smartphone with a special application.
The data can be used to analyze various aspects of the player's performance, including his or her technical level, power and endurance. A special algorithm can put together the various skills and give the player an overall rating, which Babolat calls the “tennis pulse” and which can be confronted with those of other players for competitive reasons or just for fun. The data can be updated all the time to measure individual progress.
The users of the Babolat Play system can register on the website of the Babolat Play Community to measure themselves against anybody else anywhere, including some of the pros who are sponsored by Babolat. Rafael Nadal has agreed to play along, but Li Na has said that she doesn't want to share her data. A special section of the website is reserved for coaches, who will be able to engage in distance training, if they want to.
More than 3,000 players have already registered on the website since the U.S. launch, which was made through a select group of 50 specialty tennis shops all over the country. They quickly sold the few thousands of racquets that Babolat had produced for the launch. The number of authorized U.S. dealers will reach about 150 in the next two months, and it will be followed by fewer than 300 points of sale in Europe at the start, including some online stores, as Babolat is more interested at this stage in the quality of the distribution network and of the demand than in any quantitative scores.
The new product category is expected to result in more profits for all retailers because the racquets will carry a higher price tag. For a start, Babolat has applied the new interactive system only to its Pure Drive model, pricing it at $399 in the U.S. and at €399 in Europe at retail, compared with $199 and €199 for the regular model (sic). The weight and the balance of the racquet is the same. The system will be applied to other models of Babolat racquets in the future.
The use of the Babolat Play system in international competitions is not excluded. The International Tennis Federation approved a new rule of the game last July – Rule 31 - that allows the pros to record the data during matches, but prevents them from sharing them with their coaches or others until after the matches are over.
Babolat Play is expected to help the French company to continue to grow faster than the tennis market. With a 6 percent increase in sales to €147 million for the financial year ended on June 30, 2013, Babolat did not quite reach its objectives, due in part to the appreciation of the euro, which will also be a drag on this year's results.
However, the brand consolidated its leadership in racquets in terms of value in the specialty retail circuit in France, Spain, the U.S. and Japan. It came in first or second position in Italy, and it continued to gain market share in the higher segment of the British market. Above-average growth was achieved in Russia and China. Racquets represented about half of the company's total turnover, followed by shoes and apparel with a share 20 percent.
