How many cues sold each year?

S

Stephen Folan

Registered
I have a question. Does anyone know how many cues (production cues) are sold each year globally (or maybe just North America)? And does anyone have a rough breakdown of how many of those are sold by the bigger companies like Predator, Poison, Mezz, Mcdermott, Cuetec etc.

I was just wondering how big the indutry is. With new players always coming through and current players replacing their old cues, or just adding to their collection, I thought it must be a thriving industry.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts :smile:
 
There is no way to even guess accurately, let alone "know" how many cues are sold, or who sells them (the majority of cues are manufactured in China, by a few huge factories, for many brand names, including U.S. brand names). I can tell you one thing...many times more cues are sold in Asia, compared to the U.S. or even North America. The number is likely in the millions.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
 
Thanks Scott for you answer, that's a lot of cues! More specifically how many cues are sold in North America alone each year? Does data exist for the big names in the industry? I'm not really interested in the $30 sticks sold at Wal-Mart or other low end cues.

Thanks
 
Stephen Folan said:
Thanks Scott for you answer, that's a lot of cues! More specifically how many cues are sold in North America alone each year? Does data exist for the big names in the industry? I'm not really interested in the $30 sticks sold at Wal-Mart or other low end cues.

Thanks
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About the only help you are going to get is to look at import numbers. You can go to the US Customs database and mine it for information. The billiard industry companies are mostly private and they do not release their sales.

Cue and Case Sales however puts out an advertisement that McDonalds-style touts that '10,000,000 players can't be wrong' or something like that to imply that since the beginning of the brand they have sold 10 million cues. My guess is that with diligent searching through their import records you could get a decent number of how many they are bringing in and extrapolate from there.

I believe I can say without hesitation that millions of new cues are sold each year in American alone. And this would include the ones that real players barely consider cues which are sold at places like WalMart, Sears and Kmart and sporting goods chains.

I happen to be here in China and affiliated with one of the largest producers of cues and while I am not at liberty to reveal their numbers I can tell you that they ship A LOT of cues to the world.
 
i don't believe this market data exists today, simply because the industry is too small and there isn't demand for it. i work in market research and it would be very easy to do a project to gather this data and build a market model, but it would need funding from someone. the costs for such a study would be trivial for a large corporation, but perhaps out of reach for most billiard companies. it would probably need several companies to chip in to fund the research jointly.
 
McChen said:
i don't believe this market data exists today, simply because the industry is too small and there isn't demand for it. i work in market research and it would be very easy to do a project to gather this data and build a market model, but it would need funding from someone. the costs for such a study would be trivial for a large corporation, but perhaps out of reach for most billiard companies. it would probably need several companies to chip in to fund the research jointly.
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The SGMA publishes a report each year which includes some survey data on billiards.

Pool and Billiard Magazine also does an annual survey.

Neither of which are very scientific. In fact the SGMA study is probably responsible for more failed inventions in pool than we can count. The number that frequently comes out of that report is that pool hovers around the 30 million player mark in the USA.

Of course the fine print says that this is based on survey respondents who said they played pool at least once in the previous year. So people invent all sorts of gadgetry thinking that if they could just get 1% of that 30 million to buy their products then they would be RICH!

I saw a number somewhere a decade ago that said that the billiard industry was worth 500 million per year and that this INCLUDED table sales.

I just had a conversation the other day with a customer from Taiwan. He was talking about how pool is on hard times there. He said in 2000 there was 6000 pool rooms on the island. Now he said there are only 600 left. For reference Taiwan is smaller than Texas. I don't know if there are 600 pool rooms in the whole USA.
 
Stephen Folan said:
I have a question. Does anyone know how many cues (production cues) are sold each year globally (or maybe just North America)? And does anyone have a rough breakdown of how many of those are sold by the bigger companies like Predator, Poison, Mezz, Mcdermott, Cuetec etc.

I was just wondering how big the indutry is. With new players always coming through and current players replacing their old cues, or just adding to their collection, I thought it must be a thriving industry.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts :smile:
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I've wondered about this often, and it would be interesting to have a definitive answer. I couldn't even hazard a guess. I wonder if there's any merit in analysing ebay sales to gauge the used market? Either way, personally I'd steer clear of any "thriving industry" thoughts you may have. The days of your average player paying big bucks for high value production models are long gone. I suspect the Dale Perry business model is the future. In years to come, we will look back with incredulity at the prices cues are being traded for now.
 
JB Cases said:
The SGMA publishes a report each year which includes some survey data on billiards.

Pool and Billiard Magazine also does an annual survey.

Neither of which are very scientific. In fact the SGMA study is probably responsible for more failed inventions in pool than we can count. The number that frequently comes out of that report is that pool hovers around the 30 million player mark in the USA.

Of course the fine print says that this is based on survey respondents who said they played pool at least once in the previous year. So people invent all sorts of gadgetry thinking that if they could just get 1% of that 30 million to buy their products then they would be RICH!

I saw a number somewhere a decade ago that said that the billiard industry was worth 500 million per year and that this INCLUDED table sales.

I just had a conversation the other day with a customer from Taiwan. He was talking about how pool is on hard times there. He said in 2000 there was 6000 pool rooms on the island. Now he said there are only 600 left. For reference Taiwan is smaller than Texas. I don't know if there are 600 pool rooms in the whole USA.
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yeah i think there's ancedotal data out there, but nothing that would be considered statistically solid. i think knowing the number of cues sold is probably only moderately useful....what you really want to know is what kind of cues are sold (in terms of price, features, etc.) and why and where people bought them. that will allow cue producers to hone in on the trends and focus on various market segments and develop the right channels.

when i went to taiwan a few years ago, i thought it would be a pool wonderland. but i hardly saw any pool halls. there are some, but it's like here, you have to seek them out, they're not on every corner. also i did not see any billiard shops or cues for sale. i had to really dig around to find people that sold billiards equipment. pool was on tv quite often though, almost every day.
 
I obviously dont have an answer but I think saying millions are sold in the US is way to high. There are about 312 million people living in the US and that counts all ages. I doubt 1 out of 300 play pool much less buy a pool cue each year. My guess would be around 100,000 sales...

http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
 
B.Carson said:
I obviously dont have an answer but I think saying millions are sold in the US is way to high. There are about 312 million people living in the US and that counts all ages. I doubt 1 out of 300 play pool much less buy a pool cue each year. My guess would be around 100,000 sales...

http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
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well you'd have to define what you consider a cue...i think most of us think of a decent jointed cue for a serious to semi-serious player. but think of all the house cues out there, the cheapo cues that are less than $50, the novelty cues, the crap cues that are in kits sold with tables, etc. and then what do you count the aftermarkets shafts as...cues or not cues?

i think a lot more that 1 out of 300 play pool....maybe not at the frequency of the AZBers, but i bet a very high percentage of people play several times a year recreationally similar to say bowling. i know a lot of those kind of people who have a $20 walmart cue because they think its cool to have their own cue or someone gave it to them as a gift
 
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