Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Interested in countries of origin for grands?

I just ran a search of U.S. import statistics for 2015 through October for new grand pianos 6'5" and larger. Commerce/Census shows the top four by dollar value as:

Japan ($3.33 million)
Austria ($2.62 million)
Germany ($2.30 million)
Italy ($0.72 million)

Where is China? At number seven with $225 thousand.

Quantities, you ask? Perhaps in a later post!

Larry.

It's plain to see in your statistics that Yamaha and Kawai dominate the $ sales in grands 6.5' and larger. It doesn't surprise me.

But you know what they say about statistics (and the 3 kinds of lies)...

Rick

From a fellow U.S. trade compliance attorney, great post!

I've never looked into it, but I wasn't aware the data allowed you to be specific as to size (I did know there are different HTS codes for grand and upright pianos).

Likely what this means is that pianos coming from China are mostly uprights and grands under 6-5.

I am surprised how small those figures are. When divided by the average cost of such a piano, they don't represent many units.

That's likely part of it, but $225,000 represents only a handful of pianos for a 10-month period. That suggests that there are other factors at play - perhaps they are being finished or routed elsewhere before being imported into the US.

Keep in mind that these amounts reported for US Customs purposes don't reflect the sticker or purchase price to the end consumer. It's essentially the cost to the distributor or retailer.

It should also be noted that the vast majority of pianos bought are less than 6ft 5in long. So in the end, these statistics are just an interesting tidbit about larger pianos - not a statement about the piano industry in general.

For the Metric people:
that would be any grand starting from 1.95m .

I would be happy, if my budget would allow to be part of this (sadistic) statistic.

... which is why I picked that particular segment. The numbers are also available for various smaller sizes, as well as for uprights and used pianos. But I thought the aircraft carriers of the fleet made an interesting factoid.

Larry.

Chinese-made pianos are just starting to tap into the over 6'5" market. Many of these manufacturers don't make larger grands. Most buyers of larger grand are serious players who don't generally consider Chinese instruments.

I have sold a number of new Baldwin 6'3" grands for smaller performance venues.

Indeed, I agree.