Kiteforum.com

an easy way to rank based on sales, on top on what we see on the water, is to look at second hand listings

this is the # of second hand kites on sale on a very popular kite-portal in italy:
1. North: 209
2. Slingshot: 138
3. RRD: 120
4. Best: 110
4. Naish: 85
5. Ozone: 72
then FOne and Cabrinha

as of quality, this comes to personal opinions

-

Interesting how much regional variation there is. Around here, more than half the riders are on Ocean Rodeo, and I've never seen an RRD or F-One kite. I imagine the beaches in Oz are littered with BWS, but not so much over here.

Some of this I believe is based on local headquarters or local construction. Maybe some just based on one local who was aggressive in selling and set up a strong base. A big influence is local schools ... as they often sell the kites to the people they teach, so that brand might dominate.

As for big worldwide brands....seems North, Cabrinha, and Naish are the ones that you see the most around here.

juandesooka wrote:Interesting how much regional variation there is. Around here, more than half the riders are on Ocean Rodeo, and I've never seen an RRD or F-One kite. I imagine the beaches in Oz are littered with BWS, but not so much over here.

Some of this I believe is based on local headquarters or local construction. Maybe some just based on one local who was aggressive in selling and set up a strong base. A big influence is local schools ... as they often sell the kites to the people they teach, so that brand might dominate.

As for big worldwide brands....seems North, Cabrinha, and Naish are the ones that you see the most around here.

Agreed! The local shops and dealers have a huge influence.

My local spot had about 70% Best back in 08/09 when they were super cheap pricewise.

Are North and Ozone more prominent over in Europe? I hadn't seen anyone riding either brand until last year!

In St. John's, 9 out of 10 kiters use Ocean Rodeo. This is due both to support for a Canadian kite company, excellent quality and the local shop which heavily promotes the brand.

St John's....awesome. Hi from the west coast! Stoked to hear there's kite community in Newfoundland. A windy part of the world, with lots of interesting coastal geography ... I bet you have some epic days. Not so many trees, clear launches!

Anyways, not to hijack thread ... Ocean Rodeo has a pretty good foothold in Canada. I was in France, saw 100s of kites, no OR, but people had heard good things about it. Seems to be a bunch of these regional brands, with some international influence -- 2nd tier below the really big companies, but putting out a good product.

Ozzie wrote:Hello Folks,

There are many brands out there such as North, Ozone, Cabrinha, Airush, Naish, F-One, Slingshot, Best etc and just wondering the rank based on popularıty, reputation, quality, and being well known.

Just like regular street cars(except Ferrari, Maserati etc.). Let s say for me; 1. Mercedes, 2. Audi 3.BMW and so on

what are your opinions on top 5 brand kite?

This will be EXTREMELY regionally dependant...

We have (today) many North and Takoon and Naish and now lately also LF here (new distributor) in our part of the country.

But Cabrinha, Ozone, OR, Airush does almost not exist.
And Slingshot and Best are very rare also - together with F-One that exist but not many.
Best was huge in the "hey" days, also because of a really good local distributor here.
When he left, and the brand also became more "mainstream" (almost same kites same prices) - Best dissapeared again here.

In other parts of the country it is almost reversed, so the non-existing brands here are big, and the rarely seen ones are on top, and so on.

This goes for the whole world also of course - as there are even bigger differences in what brands are distributed.

So I dont think you can give a picture worldwide, and sometimes not even national - because the local and national distributors choices are the most important

This is actually good - as it means that there are not really any "bad" brands around anymore - so as customers we can use "whatever" is around equally - even if we try other brands, as there is only "flavour" differences

Is'nt it great

Peter

I saw the other day a guy with an EH Ripper in Tarifa......


And I thought :

YEAHHHHHHHHH I´m not the only one !!!


Really !!

Back to the topic ...

Market share around ? North , Cab , Best/SS/Airrush more or less

Have fun

Regards


Franz

Dont have a clue about that, but when it comes to the kookiest riders on a brand kite - Cabrinha takes that award by a landslide! Every spot I've been it seems like the worse kiteboarders are the cabrinha fans

Twitch wrote:Dont have a clue about that, but when it comes to the kookiest riders on a brand kite - Cabrinha takes that award by a landslide! Every spot I've been it seems like the worse kiteboarders are the cabrinha fans

This is most likely simply be because Cab are the biggest worldwide brand on kiteschools (although not present here), so everything else equal, this means that many or most "new" riders straight from kiteschool will choose Cabrinha - which leads to the conception that the "worst" kitesurfers are on Cab - although it is because beginners will often choose the Cabs when used on kiteschools

Peter

gvironda wrote:an easy way to rank based on sales, on top on what we see on the water, is to look at second hand listings

this is the # of second hand kites on sale on a very popular kite-portal in italy:
1. North: 209
2. Slingshot: 138
3. RRD: 120
4. Best: 110
4. Naish: 85
5. Ozone: 72
then FOne and Cabrinha

as of quality, this comes to personal opinions

-

Does this mean there are more North and slingshot kiters who want to replace their kites to another brand?