Minoru Yoneyama
 |
|
| Public | |
| Industry | Sporting goods |
| Founded | 1946 (Incorporation June, 1958) |
| Headquarters | Tokyo, Japan |
|
Area served
|
Worldwide |
|
Key people
|
Ben Yoneyama, Chairman Kusaki Hayashida, President |
| Products | Rackets, tennis balls, shuttlecocks, clubs, shoes, apparel, accessories |
| ¥2,227 million (2015) | |
| Subsidiaries | 'Yonex Corporation', 'Yonex UK Ltd.', 'Yonex GmbH', 'Yonex Taiwan Co., Ltd.', 'Yonex Canada Ltd.', 'Yonex Golf China Co., LTD' |
| Website | www.yonex.com |
Yonex Co., Ltd. (ヨネックス株式会社 Yonekkusu Kabushiki-gaisha) (: ) is a Japanese manufacturer of sporting equipment for badminton, golf, and tennis, producing rackets, clubs, shoes, shuttlecocks, tennis balls, and other equipment for those sports.
The company was founded in 1946 by Minoru Yoneyama as a producer of wooden floats for fishing nets. The company was later forced out of this market because of the invention of plastic floats. This led to a commitment by Yoneyama to never again be left behind by technological advancements.
In 1957, Yoneyama began to make badminton racquets for other brands. By 1961, the first Yoneyama-branded racquet was introduced, and within another two years an export company was created for the worldwide distribution. After the company began to make aluminum badminton racquets in 1969, it found that the same technology could be applied to the tennis racket which the company introduced in 1971. The company began to experiment with graphite shafts for both types of rackets and found that these would also be useful for golf clubs.
In 1982 YONEX came out with the new oversized tennisracquet in the REX-series with R-7 and R-10. At that time Martina Navratilova played with R-7 and very successful.Than one year later the new serie Rexking was developed with the R-22.
In 1988 you could suddenly see Martina Navratilova with a new YONEX in her hands it was the white RQ 180 widebody frame, with Martina won a couple of tournaments. She played this racquet until the early '90s.
Finding a growing market, the Yonex Corporation (a wholly owned subsidiary) was established in Torrance, California in July 1983. In 1992 Yonex introduced the widebody badminton racket, the "Isometric 500", a racquet that was much less "tear drop"-shaped than previous ones. The more "square" head gave it a much larger striking surface, which provides a larger "sweet spot" to hit the shuttle. It led other manufacturers to follow suit in "square-head" or isometric designs.
...
Wikipedia