Life Cycle of Ski Companies

e~b

e~b

Member
Lately, smaller companies that have been in the game for periods of time have been losing all of their sponsors, and subsequently losing revenue. Some prime examples are APO and Fat-ypus, where practically their whole team has gone to Faction or elsewhere. In spite of this, new companies have emerged, including Revision, HG, and Vishnu (not to mention TBK ski co.). Is our industry dominated by 2-4 big companies, or is this just the life cycle of ski companies?
 
faction be like
sponsorship-opportunities.jpg
 
life cycles of ski companies is no different than any other industry. Some companies just don't make it, others do. its not rocket science.
 
Lol. The ski industry is definitely not dominated by Faction, Line, and Armada. Those are all tiny compared to Salomon, Rossi, Atomic, K2, etc.
 
Small cool company that invents twin tips>continues to make dope skis because the owner is cool>Jlev sells company to K2

Life cycle of a ski company
 
TBK doesn't count as a company, as much as 13 year olds duct tape wallet making businesses are not companies
 
13379678:caucasian_chad said:
Lol. The ski industry is definitely not dominated by Faction, Line, and Armada. Those are all tiny compared to Salomon, Rossi, Atomic, K2, etc.
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Not as much as you might think. At least Line is a pretty darn big player these days.
 
don't really think the industry's "dominated" by big companies, but they certainly make it more difficult for smaller companies to get a foot in the market.
 
The problem with these small ski companies is the demand for their product. Most skiers go through a pair of park skis in a year. They can't afford to buy these really nice but expensive skis made by small companies like j skis and on3p. The big brands know how to make a ski affordable and can market to big stores that will have discounts and promotions.
 
Didn't fat ypus go bankrupt? Besides that APO have pulled their North American team and is now focusing on Europe. Also faction is pretty small. Like how much do you think Adam Delorme seriously gets paid?
 
13380263:cjt121099 said:
The problem with these small ski companies is the demand for their product. Most skiers go through a pair of park skis in a year. They can't afford to buy these really nice but expensive skis made by small companies like j skis and on3p. The big brands know how to make a ski affordable and can market to big stores that will have discounts and promotions.
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neither J skis or ON3P are that expensive. All of On3P's park skis are right around $600 and J skis are like $550. You can compare that to armada, Line, Rossi and Atomic who sell their skis for right about the same price. The only difference is that lots of the bigger companies have a price point ski (i.e. el ray, afterbang, storm, infamous.
 
companies that simply "exist" are not going to make it. they might be cool and "core" for a short period of time but will eventually fall flat.

Independent "freeski" companies (ie Armada, Faction, Line (to a point), 4Frnt, etc...) continue to exist and thrive because they are doing innovating, putting money into R&D and actually producing a product the industry hasn't seen before.

To say the big boys are dominating the industry isn't a fair statement because while the continue to crush the smaller guy in terms of overall sales, I'll bet you'd be surprised to see actual sales figures comparing the big brands to the smaller ones. Obviously Salomon, Atomic, K2, etc... will be putting up bigger numbers because let's face it, they can offer bigger discounts to retailers who buy in volume but I doubt they're as massive as a lot of people think.
 
companies that simply "exist" are not going to make it. they might be cool and "core" for a short period of time but will eventually fall flat.

Independent "freeski" companies (ie Armada, Faction, Line (to a point), 4Frnt, etc...) continue to exist and thrive because they are doing innovating, putting money into R&D and actually producing a product the industry hasn't seen before.

To say the big boys are dominating the industry isn't a fair statement because while the continue to crush the smaller guy in terms of overall sales, I'll bet you'd be surprised to see actual sales figures comparing the big brands to the smaller ones. Obviously Salomon, Atomic, K2, etc... will be putting up bigger numbers because let's face it, they can offer bigger discounts to retailers who buy in volume but I doubt they're as massive as a lot of people think.
 
13380424:SPUTnik. said:
neither J skis or ON3P are that expensive. All of On3P's park skis are right around $600 and J skis are like $550. You can compare that to armada, Line, Rossi and Atomic who sell their skis for right about the same price. The only difference is that lots of the bigger companies have a price point ski (i.e. el ray, afterbang, storm, infamous.
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ON3P and J skis are expensive. its true that Line and Armada skis are around the same regular price as J and ON3P, but the difference is that they go on sale and ON3P and J skis do not. there is a 200 dollar difference in Armada top park skis and ON3P top park skis.
 
13379889:Mr.Bishop said:
Not as much as you might think. At least Line is a pretty darn big player these days.
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Line also dropped their entire team a while back, with the exception of Eric Pollard. Rossignol did the same thing.
 
13379889:Mr.Bishop said:
Not as much as you might think. At least Line is a pretty darn big player these days.
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well line is owned by K2, so K2 is a pretty big player these days
 
13380555:NinetyFour said:
On this I don't really know if K2 'owns' Line. I'm pretty sure they share resources but they're both owned by Jarden. Jarden also owns Volkl, but I believe Volkl is independent from K2 and Line.
http://www.jarden.com/brands
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wow I knew that K2 had line but I didn't that many companies where owned by Jarden cuz that's a pretty signifigant chunk of the market, also Amer sports has atomic and saloman so there they have a pretty big share too, Idk about Nordica, head, Rossi or any other major players though. Either way you can't look at the industry just from a newschoolers park perspective, there is a huge market for regular system binding downhill skis that your everyday
 
13380555:NinetyFour said:
On this I don't really know if K2 'owns' Line. I'm pretty sure they share resources but they're both owned by Jarden. Jarden also owns Volkl, but I believe Volkl is independent from K2 and Line.
http://www.jarden.com/brands
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I am pretty sure it went like this:

K2 Sports bought Line in 2006

Jarden bought K2 Sports in 2007

I believe Line is a subsidiary of K2 Sports, where K2 Sports is a subsidiary of Jarden (could be wrong, so maybe someone has more info).

Line & K2 are both located in the K2 Sports office in Seattle, but they have their own separate employees/sections within the office (along with Full Tilt and a number of other brands owned by K2 Sports).
 
You pay for quality and soul and thats why small companies are great. Doesnt matter if they get big or compete with the big boys.
 
Its a really hard industry to make money in. I feel for the small guys. TBK doesn't know what they're in for hahaha.
 
13380601:iggyskier said:
I am pretty sure it went like this:

K2 Sports bought Line in 2006

Jarden bought K2 Sports in 2007

I believe Line is a subsidiary of K2 Sports, where K2 Sports is a subsidiary of Jarden (could be wrong, so maybe someone has more info).

Line & K2 are both located in the K2 Sports office in Seattle, but they have their own separate employees/sections within the office (along with Full Tilt and a number of other brands owned by K2 Sports).
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I believe K2 took over line earlier than 2006. I wanna say early 2000's, after lines binding disaster. Jarden owns K2, Line, Volkl, BCA, Full Tilt, Marker, Dalbelo, Marmot, Ride, Morrow. Thats just mostly there winter sports brands. They also own Coleman, Tubbs, Adio, Cappel, and Planet Earth.

Thats compared to Amer which owns Salomon, Atomic, Arcteryx, and Bonfire.
 
13380891:Gnarco said:
I believe K2 took over line earlier than 2006. I wanna say early 2000's, after lines binding disaster.
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Pretty sure Karhu bought 50% of Line around 2003, then both Karhu & Line were acquired by K2 Sports in 2006.
 
It would be cool to see a list like the one above with revenue rankings but only for twin tip sales. The fact that Line is so high up on that list is awesome because they only sell twins, and they're ahead of Nordica who sells both.
 
13380925:.vLee said:
It would be cool to see a list like the one above with revenue rankings but only for twin tip sales. The fact that Line is so high up on that list is awesome because they only sell twins, and they're ahead of Nordica who sells both.
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I agree with you for the most part, but I don`t think nordica would be such a good example, from my point of view nordica is much more of a ski boot's brand. (if that makes sense)
 
Ski industry has no idea what their in for... Final warning for all other ski companies out there, we've got you by the balls, step down now before it gets messy.
 
13380925:.vLee said:
It would be cool to see a list like the one above with revenue rankings but only for twin tip sales. The fact that Line is so high up on that list is awesome because they only sell twins, and they're ahead of Nordica who sells both.
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I may be able to get a list of the top companies that sell twin tips. I won't be able to get their revenue or hard numbers but I will be able to get a rough estimate of which companies are killing it right now. If I'm able to I'll definitely post it in this thread.
 
13380550:NinetyFour said:
I keep using this table from this thread:
https://www.newschoolers.com/forum/thread/703460/Eric-Pollard-Joins-K2-Outerwear



I have no idea how accurate that chart is, but I've seen a few other updated ones that had similar numbers. So if there is any truth to it then Line is big. There's that for whatever it's worth to the thread.
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Kind of surprised by this, I would have thought solomon would have been close to the top of the heap, especially because they sell all types of skis. Also didn't realize K2 was so big, their other lines of skis besides twins must do well.

Also, in the Pep Fujas vice segment didn't they say that the first year alone they sold 10000 pairs of kung fujas's?
 
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