Nearly Half of YONEX's Revenue Now Comes from China — Here's How That Happened
Here's a number that makes you stop: nearly 48% of all YONEX revenue now comes from China.
Here's a number that makes you stop: nearly 48% of all YONEX revenue now comes from China.
For the 2026 fiscal year (ended March 2026), the Japanese sports equipment maker brought in about 163.6 billion yen in consolidated sales — roughly RMB 6.8 billion — and Chinese customers accounted for just over 778 billion yen of that. That's 47.5%. Up from 44.2% the year before, and 41.6% the year before that. The center of gravity hasn't just shifted; it's relocated.
What's behind this isn't simply "China likes badminton" — though yes, China really, really likes badminton, and that gives YONEX a bedrock of demand most brands would envy. The more interesting story is how YONEX changed
what
it sells and
how
it sells it.
The "Head-to-Toe" play
YONEX built its name on rackets. But over the past few years in China, it's been pushing a strategy it calls "Head-to-Toe": start with the racket, then sell everything else a player wears and carries. Training shirts, match kits, shoes, bags, wristbands, towels — the whole uniform.
In China, the company's "Other" category — which lumps together apparel, bags, accessories, non-specialist footwear, even snowboarding and cycling gear — saw a compound annual growth rate north of 30% from 2021 to 2025. That's faster than the company's overall revenue growth over the same period.
YONEX credits two things: locally-led product development tuned to Chinese consumer tastes, and higher adoption of its shoes and apparel at amateur tournaments. Chinese sports consumption is shifting from "buy one good racket" to "own the full kit," and YONEX has been methodical about capturing that upgrade.
From the national team to your neighborhood court
The other half is distribution. YONEX's China playbook runs on three layers.
At the top: the Chinese national badminton team. YONEX first sponsored them in the 1980s, lost the deal to Li-Ning in 2009, then won it back in 2021 through an open bidding process — an 8-year contract for equipment and apparel. That's the prestige anchor.
In the middle: its own tournament ecosystem. The "Legends' Vision" amateur tour has run in over 30 cities across China, with youth, adult, and parent-child categories, feeding winners into a Shanghai Open where they can face pros. By 2023 it had logged over 90,000 participants. In 2025, it's still running. These aren't just marketing — they're where YONEX shoes and apparel actually get worn, tested, and seen.
On the ground: retail that actually does something. For years YONEX relied almost entirely on distributors in China, with fewer than 30 branded stores around 2015. That changed in August 2023, when it opened its first directly-operated flagship on Shanghai's Huaihai Road. Then in July 2025, a second flagship in Nanjing — over 1,000 square meters, with three full badminton courts inside the store. You can shop, get your racket strung, have shoes customized, or just book a court and play. DTC sales jumped over 40% that fiscal year.
Globally, YONEX still leans heavily on badminton (62% of revenue), with tennis at 13%, golf under 1%, and "Other" at 23%. But the China numbers make clear where the momentum is: the racket brings people in, and the "head-to-toe" engine makes them spend more once they're there.
The company's 2030 targets — 10% operating margin, 7-10% annual revenue growth — look ambitious but grounded. And the quiet truth of YONEX's last decade is that the Japanese brand founded in 1946 in Niigata making wooden floats has become, in practical terms, a company whose fortunes rise and fall with the Chinese consumer.
