Market Overview

The domestic golf goods market size based on the sales at manufacturers in 2021 has risen by 19.4% to 276,330 million yen. While the growth from 2020, having heavily affected by COVID-19 pandemic, was in a sense quite natural, it has even surpassed the size of 2019 before COVID by approximately 4% or by 11,000 million yen.

Triggered by spread of the coronavirus infections, golf has begun being in the spotlight as an outdoor activity that can avoid so-called “3 closenesses (i.e., closed space, crowded places and conversations in close proximity)” and increased the number of new golfers who are mainly the young population as well as some of those “dormant” golfers who used to stop playing golf for a while, in addition to existing golfers becoming more active in playing golf have all contributed in expanding the golf goods market size.

Noteworthy Topics

Sales Trend of Golf Club Sets

Against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, the domestic golf industry is booming. What symbolizes this is increase in the number of new golfers who are chiefly young people. In association with this, “club sets (a set of products includes a driver, a fairway wood, some irons and a putter, within a golf cart bag, mainly geared for beginners)” which never attracted attention in the domestic golf goods market has suddenly come to the fore.

In order to estimate the trend and calculate the market size of such club sets, the research has asked major golf club manufacturers regarding the sales volume of such club sets, but has unfortunately failed to obtain enough responses to estimate the entire market size.

Still, according to YPS Golf Data (the data accumulated and analyzed the real sales results at approx. 1,100 domestic golf goods retail stores) by Yano Research Institute, the sales volume of golf club sets (the total at approx. 800 stores) in 2021 has grown by 48.3% on a YoY basis, or remarkably by 64.6% against 2019 results, before COVID. The sales growth has been specifically noteworthy in club sets for women.

*The market size for club sets is overlapped with the sales volume of golf clubs by category.

Future Outlook

The domestic market size for golf goods for 2022 is projected to grow by 11.9% on a YoY basis to 309,210 million yen, over 300,000 million yen. The last time when the golf goods market exceeded 300,000 million yen was in 2001, so that if the market in 2022 reaches this figure, it should be the first time in almost 20 years.

The forecasts for the market size and YoY comparison by category for 2022 are as follows:

Drivers, fairway woods: 54,800 million yen (123.4% on YoY)
Hybrid (utility) clubs: 12,610 million yen (113.6% on YoY)
Irons: 47300 million yen (106.8% on YoY)
Putters: 10400 million yen (126.8% on YoY)
Balls for golf courses: 21900 million yen (104.3% on YoY)
Balls for golf ranges: 1860 million yen (100.5% on YoY)
Golf shoes: 13620 million yen (109.1% on YoY)
Golf cart bags: 8850 million yen (105.0% on YoY)
Other bags & covers: 6150 million yen (113.9% on YoY)
Golf gloves: 6920 million yen (101.0% on YoY)
Golf apparel: 105900 million yen (110.3% on YoY)
Other golf goods: 18900 million yen (115.8% on YoY)

While the growth rate differs by category, all the categories are expected to grow. Among them, the two markets with large sales amount, i.e. drivers & fairway woods and golf apparel, are expected to attain two-digit growth, which is projected to drive the entire market expansion. On the other hand, there also is a characteristic that those categorized as “consumables”, such as balls for golf courses and golf gloves, are expected to increase only slightly.

Research Outline