Published July 17, 2008 on April 24, 2019

Honma’s Global Growth Strategy

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Honma Japan represented by Takahiro Suzuki, Senior Manager, Asia Sales Department (South East Asia, Korea and Taiwan) recently visited Malaysia to give updates on the current status of their brand and their upcoming plans in Malaysia. Suzuki gave an insight on Honma’s direction and plans to grow globally.

One of his updates included the announcement that MST Golf is currently the exclusive distributor for Honma Golf in Malaysia after their successful run as a co-distributor previously. “We are satisfied with the growth of our brand through MST Golf and we are confident for more in Malaysia with MST Golf as the exclusive distributor now. We have been impressed with the growth of MST Golf throughout Malaysia and are excited to grow together with them,” said Suzuki.

He further added, “MST Golf has shown their commitment in growing the Honma brand in Malaysia through all of their efforts, activations as well as the opening of the Honma Shop-in-shop within their MST Golf Intermark Kuala Lumpur store.”

KP Low, Managing Director of MST Golf added that they are happy to be appointed as the exclusive distributor for Honma in Malaysia and have plans in the pipeline to further the growth of the premium brand in the country. “We have an extensive network of stores in strategic locations around the country from having a presence in shopping centres, leading golf and country clubs as well as our own standalone stores. We believe that we can manage and grow Honma by getting the products into the hands of their targeted consumers effectively through our wide network of shops across Malaysia,” said Low.

On Honma’s strategy as a global brand, Suzuki said “In the past, we were only focused on the Japanese and Asian markets but we now want to be a global player in the golf equipment scene. We can see that we are already strong in the Asian market and the US, European and Southeast Asian markets are getting stronger.”

Suzuki added “We are looking towards signing more PGA Tour & European Tour players now to reach this goal. We are looking at these players as they have a greater influence on the global scene.”

Honma clubs have been showing up in the bags of the PGA Tour & European Tour players. The fact that these players are not contracted by Honma and have been trusting Honma equipment further validates the quality of their products.

Honma Golf created waves in the global golf industry when they signed an equipment deal with Justin Rose, currently ranked number 4 in the world.  According to Suzuki, Justin Rose heard about Honma golf clubs before and started testing with them in June last year. He was impressed with the equipment from the brand but required some tweaks to suit his eye. The team from Honma made the adjustments and managed to get it back to Justin within two weeks with a product that he was amazed by. That was the clubs that resulted in the T//World Rose Proto, which is currently in Justin Rose’s bag and is due to be launched to the market globally in June this year.

In addition to signing world-class top golfers to grow globally, Suzuki stated that Honma has set up its American base in Southern California to better serve the American market and their needs. It was mentioned that they will be moving their American operations to Carlsbad, California, where all the major global golf brands are. With this setup, Honma has managed to recruit some of the best talents in the industry to grow and innovate its products in collaboration with their R&D team back in Sakata, Japan.

The signing of Justin Rose coincided with the launch of the T//World747 range of golf clubs. This line of clubs fit into Honma’s focus on the premium performance golf club space. The T//World747 range of clubs, from Driver to Irons, have been more accessibly priced while maintaining the premium quality and craftsmanship as it is fully made in Honma’s factory in Sakata, Japan. The T//World747 has irons designed to fit most players with their V, Vx and P irons.

“In the near future, we will be focused only on 2 lines, the Super Premium model, which is represented by the Beres series, and the Premium Performance model, which is now represented by the T// World series,” said Suzuki.

As part of Honma’s visit to Malaysia, Honma’s 5 Star Master Fitter, Takashi Katsumata, held exclusive one-to-one custom fitting sessions for TPC Kuala Lumpur Members in TPC Kuala Lumpur and MST Golf’s ilovegolf Members which was held in the advanced at the MST Golf Tech Shop PJ (Federal Highway). This rare opportunity was provided and organized by MST Golf.

Honma products are exclusively available by MST Golf. Honma custom fittings are available at MST Golf Tech Shops.