Does anyone know what percentage of Pearl River's pianos are sold in China? Because part of this story is surely the huge popularity of the piano as an instrument there.
Total production by all piano makers in China was 380,000 in 2012, estimated to be 77% of the world's total output. Pearl River accounted for 129,000 of the total. Hailun has been anywhere from No. 5 to No. 7 over the last few years in terms of output， just north of 20,000 in 2012 - some of it was actually oursourced to other companies, as its production capacity was well below 20,000/year - 30% of its output was exported. Hailun just moved into a new factory last spring, once everything is up and running it is expected to reach a production capacity of 40,000/year.
Contrary to the misconception that pianos made in China are flooding the world market, the number of pianos exported reached its peak in 2005 and has been declining ever since. In 2005, 120,000 pianos were exported; in 2012, only 50,000 were shipped overseas (43,000 uprights and 7,000 grands), while 106,800 pianos were imported. For the first six months of 2013, total number of pianos exported declined further to 18,372 (15,323 uprights, 3,049 grands), the decline is particularly sharp for uprights (nearly 30% compared to the first six months of 2012).
The reality is that China is not only the largest market for new pianos today, but quite possibly the only growing one as well. It's a net importer, and buys up most pianos produced by the rest of the world.
