The Spanish company Smart Padel Automation, which has a partnership with Playtomic, hopes to begin expand into gyms and golf courses next year, CEO José Enrique Conde tells CMDsport.
Smart Padel’s software and devices can handle fire hazards, the switching of lights, air conditioning and heat, water flow for showers and other such matters. It is experimenting with systems to adjust the electric lights for outdoor padel courts by the light of day and enable the players to make adjustments. It is also testing automatic vending machines with a view toward sales in 2025. “These machines,” says Conde, offer clubs total control over stock and sales, in addition to the option to rent, for maximum revenues.”
According to Conde, Smart Padel derives 80 percent of its revenues from abroad in some 26 countries. “The international client,” he says, “is more predisposed to the automation of his facilities.” Smart Padel plans to establish operations in New Zealand and Singapore in the next few months.
For the domestic market the company has discovered a new selling point. According to a study it conducted last year, Spain’s padel clubs lose an average of €2,000 every time lack of personnel obliges them to close for day – during Christmas, for example. Automation would pick up these lost revenues.
Smart Padel has a clientele of 340 clubs at present but forecasts 400 by the end of this year. For revenues it has forecast a tripling, to $750,000, from last year’s $250,000.
