Forum for kitesurfers
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bkkite
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- Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2016 6:45 pm
- Local Beach: South Oyster Bay
- Favorite Beaches: Dakhla
- Style: Freeride
- Gear: Core XR5 15m , xlite 12m, Nexus 2 9m, XR5 7m
Core Fusion 139, Slingshot Celero 5’8, Slingshot Dwarfcraft 110cm with a Hover Glide Foil and Apollo 60 front wing
- Brand Affiliation: None
- Location: NYC
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Postby bkkite » Fri Oct 08, 2021 5:08 pm
edt wrote: ↑Wed Oct 06, 2021 7:16 pm
bkkite wrote: ↑Tue Oct 05, 2021 10:28 pm
I heard the whole industry is only ~250m, that seems like an aggressive growth path...
Either way, growth is probably good because none of these companies have critical mass to start lowering prices...
Interesting. How many kiters are there? 2 million? That means if a new kite is 2k the average kiter buys a kite once every 15 years
I'd be surprised if it's 2million kiters, but yeah, I was also surprised that it was such a low number (250mill). Winging is definitely causing the biggest spike the industry has seen for a long time, so if that supports brands that I like, I'm fine with it. I don't do enough wave riding to be tempted by it, but I think its always good to have more options for people to get on the water.
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edt
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- Joined: Fri Jul 16, 2010 6:27 am
- Kiting since: 2010
- Local Beach: Michigan
- Gear: ride hard, no regrets
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Postby edt » Fri Oct 08, 2021 10:49 pm
The great thing about winging is that it's like the SUP. dont need any lessons so you can buy it brand new, and then stick it in your closet next to your treadmill and SUP and tell everyone how you practice an extreme sport. For probably 10 years, SUP sales were keeping all the kite shops around here afloat, but then everyone who wants to put a SUP in their closet had already bought one and that was it. Wings will be the same. People will keep buying them but they won't be like kiters that buy a new kite every other year, they will buy it once stick it in the closet the end. The wingers we see out at the beach are a tiny fraction of sales. Kites because you need instruction, nobody buys those and put them in the closet, because there's such a high barrier. People who buy kites almost all become kiteboarders.
We tend to underestimate how many wingers there are by counting them at the beach. I think that's a vast under undercount, maybe by a factor of 10. Most wingers just put it in their closet and pretend that some day they'll use it.
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brad_jax
- Rare Poster
- Posts: 12
- Joined: Fri Apr 02, 2021 2:14 pm
- Kiting since: 2020
- Weight: 165
- Local Beach: La Ventana Mexico
Jacksonville Beach FL
- Style: Freestyle/Big Air
- Gear: Duotone Evo D/Lab 8/11m
Duotone Rebel 9m
Duotone Jamie SLS 136cm
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Postby brad_jax » Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:43 pm
edt wrote: ↑Fri Oct 08, 2021 10:49 pm
The great thing about winging is that it's like the SUP. dont need any lessons so you can buy it brand new, and then stick it in your closet next to your treadmill and SUP and tell everyone how you practice an extreme sport. For probably 10 years, SUP sales were keeping all the kite shops around here afloat, but then everyone who wants to put a SUP in their closet had already bought one and that was it. Wings will be the same. People will keep buying them but they won't be like kiters that buy a new kite every other year, they will buy it once stick it in the closet the end. The wingers we see out at the beach are a tiny fraction of sales. Kites because you need instruction, nobody buys those and put them in the closet, because there's such a high barrier. People who buy kites almost all become kiteboarders.
We tend to underestimate how many wingers there are by counting them at the beach. I think that's a vast under undercount, maybe by a factor of 10. Most wingers just put it in their closet and pretend that some day they'll use it.
I was laughing and nodding my head in agreement at the same time.
Every beach rental company, beach & bay resort, river kayaking service etc all went through a boom of buying tons and tons of SUPs as well which added to this artificial demand. Now that everyone has loaded up on them the sales are going to plummet.
Solid point on barrier to entry. No one drops tons of cash on something they are committed to doing (well most people). Wings aren't scary and can be combined with a massive oversized SUP that takes no effort to learn to ride. Combine the two BAM "extreme sport" that you only do a couple of times.
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