The time comes to play big games for Japanese golf goods companies

The second biggest economy of Japan after the U.S. has made Japanese golf goods companies introvert to deal with home market for few decades. Those companies, however, seem to change their risk-averse attitudes. They start aggressively deploying new markets in Asian region.

I would like to quote meaning comparisons of golf business environment between USA and Japan, based upon data of Accordia Golf Co., Ltd. a major Golf course and golf driving range management company in Japan.

 
Accordia Golf Co., Ltd

	USA	Japan
Number of golf course	16,000 courses	2,400 courses
Golf population	2,870M	830M
Penetration rate of golfers	12.6%	9.8%
Number of playing golf per year	18 times	11 times
Average Fee of playing golf	5,300 yen	11,850 yen

Japanese love golf in that penetration rate of golfers are just slightly smaller than that of U.S.A. although playing fee in Japan is twice as high as that in USA. In addition, golfers love consuming tons of money onto golf goods or wears.

The popularity of playing golf in Japan is different story than how much golfers love playing golf, though. Japan Golf Association shows gloomy future of golf population in Japan. It foreseen that golf population in 2010 is 10.33 million, compared to 12.7 million in 1990, 14.5 million in 1994 and 12.9 million in 2000. So Japanese golf goods companies must play games outside Japan.

 

Japan Golf Association
Study of demographic change of golf population by generation (in Japanese)

In December 2007 Quiksilver, Inc. sold 100% of the stock of its subsidiary Cleveland Golf Company, Inc. to SRI Sports Limited, an owner of Srixon Golf with $132.5 million transaction value. Thus SRI Sports Limited announced that Cleveland Golf Company, Inc. acquired U.S. sales a subsidiary of SRI Sports Limited to sell two flagship brands such as Srixon and Cleveland Golf in October 2008. US Sales of SRI Sports Limited stayed at 2.3 billion yen in FY2007 while market shares of golf ball was merely two per cent. SRI Sports Limited aims to boost US Sales to 24 billion yen in FY2007 after the meager of Cleveland Golf Company, Inc.

 
SRI Sports Limited

The ongoing financial turmoil, however, is affecting the strategy of the third biggest manufacture of sportswear and sports-related products Descente Ltd. in South Korea.

According to an article “Descente to open fewer golf wear stores in S Korea” of Nihon Keizai Shinbun as of October 22, Descente Ltd. change its business plan to open more golf ware shops in department stores in South Korea. It aimed to open one or two shops of Munsingwear and 10 to 15 stores of Le Coq Sportif Golf to bring at least 10 billion yen of annual sales in South Korea within four years, compared to sales of 6 billion yen in 2007.

 
Descente Ltd.

Due to Korean won depreciation against Japanese yen and economic disorder, Descente Ltd. will scale down business operations: suspend any opening of Munsingwear stores and open only five stores of Le Coq Sportif Golf in FY2009.