2025 Table Tennis Equipment Market Observations, Part 1
1. Visibility Is Life or Death for Products and Brands
Setting performance aside for a moment — LOKI Raytheon probably had a solid year of business. They sponsored an enormous number of events: the China Super League, Asian Youth Championships, Class A/B/C/D leagues, and countless amateur tournaments, while signing a roster of national team players. This strategy is similar to what Tibhar did in its day: cast a wide net, build recognition.
They also signed national team players like Liang Jingkun, Yuan Licen, Zhao Zihao, Hu Dongshen, and Xu Chenhao, plus several provincial teams. The exposure is undeniable.
Some brands don’t need to work for visibility — Butterfly and DHS have products that naturally attract attention. But often, customers need to actually see your product before they’ll buy. With so many brands and even more products out there, no matter how good something is, it won’t sell without enough exposure. Take Yinhe’s Big Dipper 5 — it plays like a softer, springier version of Hurricane 8 and is genuinely fun. Through this newsletter alone, I’ve sold well over a hundred of them, and that’s entirely because readers saw the write-up.
The reason I regularly promote my Black Horse custom blades in this newsletter is twofold. First, within an hour of every article I publish, dozens of accounts on various platforms copy my content wholesale. If I don’t embed some self-promotion to make plagiarism harder, there’s no way to fight it. Second, promoting your own product just makes sense. If you don’t, people won’t notice it, no matter how good it is.
When Ibex was being promoted heavily, it sold well. Since promotion slowed — even after price drops — sales have fallen too. That’s completely normal. With every brand churning out new products at an accelerating pace, everyone must put their products in front of enough eyes to survive. Especially small brands.
2. The Big Winner: Pinduoduo
Secondhand platforms go without saying — the past decade has seen explosive growth in that space. My own account has accumulated thousands of followers. Pinduoduo has seen major sales growth over the past two years, especially this year. Whether dealers are actually making money is unclear, but the brands are definitely benefiting in terms of volume. And the real big winners on that platform are the established names.
Because products people already know are now available at lower prices — everyone jumps on that. The high-priced DHS star national rubbers and Butterfly’s flagship rubbers (Tenergy, Dignics series) have seen noticeably higher volumes.
The same boost has helped certain well-known rubbers: Joola’s Platinum V (the Weixia China edition), Stiga’s DNA Dragon Grip and Platinum editions, V greater than 15 Sticky. A lot of people say Stiga isn’t doing well anymore, but that’s exactly backwards — their business has been stronger these past two years. The DNA rubber sales have surged. Letting ESN handle manufacturing was absolutely the right move, and the Korean-manufactured blade line is steadily gaining ground too.
3. The Market Is Rough — and Getting Rougher
The table tennis equipment market is broadly weak. The second half of the year was worse than the first, and competition is only intensifying.
The pressure comes from how fast information spreads and how much is shared. It also comes from the growing number of independent self-brands. Add in the influence of platforms like Pinduoduo and secondhand markets, and the price war never stops.
I buy my own inorganic glue on Pinduoduo now. I alternate between Liulan — better elasticity, average tack, better for outer rubbers — and Yantianming, which has higher viscosity, a bit like DHS No. 15, and suits Chinese-made rubbers. There’s also an upgraded 6th-generation version that doesn’t bubble. The prices are really unbelievably cheap.
I honestly don’t know how much profit dealers are making on Pinduoduo, but it’s definitely helping us buy what we love at lower prices. My neighbor used to swap a sheet of T05 every four months. Thanks to Pinduoduo, he now does it every two.