The goal is to rapidly become the second-largest player in the badminton market after Yonex by using the group’s well-oiled distribution network, by offering a complete package of products including shuttlecocks, clothing and footwear, and by adapting the technologies already developed in the highly competitive tennis sector to its future line of badminton racquets.
It should not be too difficult and it may pay off handsomely. Yonex controls 40-50 percent of the otherwise very fragmented global badminton market, whose size is estimated at about 70 percent of the tennis market, at least in terms of volume, with a strong potential for development outside Asia. In Europe the only relatively big badminton market is the Danish one, and it is very peculiar.
Head’s new badminton project is led by Claes Thomsen, a Danish executive who previously ran the racquet sports division of Active Sportswear, which has its own brand of badminton racquets and related products, called Forza. Head has also recruited Babolat’s business manager for badminton, Mathieu Argilles, as a product manager for badminton.
Thomsen will be in charge of sales and marketing for Head’s new badminton line, which will be delivered to some distributors and to key retailers in the 4th quarter of this year, followed by additional shipments in limited quantities next February and March, but the full-fledged launch will take place for the Fall/Winter 2007/08 season. In Denmark, where the badminton market is about twice as big as the tennis market, the launch will be supported by a new 5-year contract with the Danish Badminton Association, which was previously sponsored by RSL in Hong Kong, kicking off with the big Danish Open starting on Oct. 31.
Thomsen’s departure from Active Sportswear in May 2005 was not quite smooth. The Danish company reacted angrily, putting an end to its long-standing and fruitful distribution contract with Head for the Danish market, and switching over to Babolat. The new Danish distributor of Head is No Nations, a company formed by a wealthy investor, Steen Hummevar, who is also the licensee of Kappa for the Scandinavian countries and the Baltics. He will have a similar deal with Fila, starting with the Spring/Summer 2007 season.
