Bob Jewett said:
I think you are asking these questions in the wrong place. I doubt that the people here have any information on sales figures. If you really need this info, go to the BCA trade show in June in Vegas. Count the number of booths each of the cue companies has.
Dufferin is out of business, I believe, and Cuetec was mentioned earlier.
The number of booths is not indicative of the sales a company has. Anyone who has access to enough money can buy booths. And anyone with money to burn can go broke on temporary real estate.
The number of booths a company has is generally a indicator of what they are trying to project.
While there are a few people here who do have some information on sales it isn't really prudent or relevant to discuss it here.
A good inidcator of sales however is to dig into the import figures at the US Customs website. There is a lot of interesting information that can be gleaned by looking at import/export figures.
As for which cues are most popular - Of the traditionally constructed cues Players/Lucasi are the most popular among the imports in the $80-$200 price range. This is because they have been the most successful at building brick and mortar dealerships around the country. Of the fiberglass/carbon fiber cues Cuetec is the most popular in the $100-200 price range. This is because they have been the most successful at attaining brand recognition among beginning pool players and also because they have a loyal network of dealers as Cue and Case does.
Of the American brands - Viking and Meucci are probably still the most recognizable and asked for. Viking because they manage to stay visible. Meucci because they were so very popular throughout the 80's and early 90's that they have retained a certain brand awareness that older players are passing to younger players.
For sales I would guess that Viking and McDermott are the top two US brands in the $150-$500 range.
For the $500 and up crowd - that belongs to Schon and Joss as the two most recognizable brands. For the $1000 plus it is widely diversified among the many, many, many, many small to midsized cuemakers in the USA.
Just my opinion though.
Lastly, if you do go to the BCA show all you will see is booths. People are not there. The BCA has lost all of it's value to exhibitors and visitors alike. So you will see a lot of empty booths and very few exhibitions and very little that is truly new and innovative. If you want to tie booth size to sales then the 50 booth mega-supplier block last year is the largest company in the billiard industry. And their most prominent item was..........
A bad copy of the BCA Rules and Records Book. There's a little twist of irony for you.
quantity also?
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