State of the Padel Racket Report 2023

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Are hard rackets more expensive than soft rackets? Who makes the greatest proportion of diamond rackets? What’s the price of rackets produced in Spain versus Asia?

Every time you need to purchase a new one it feels like you’re purchasing a new category of objects.

And this is to not even mention the fact that the marketing of padel rackets is unnecessarily confusing. Manufacturers make up terms or coopt existing terms to describe different concepts.

At Padel FYI, we hope we can help simplify the padel racket purchase journey while giving you a system of tools and frameworks to help you navigate the racket market.

In order to understand today’s padel racket trends, we put together the following report leveraging statistical analysis to analyze racket design, price, and technology. We’ll go over nearly 200 rackets from 8 manufacturers from data that we’ve scraped from some retailers.

Quick facts

• Rackets included: 181 models
• Models from: 2021, 2022, 2023
• Manufacturers included: 8
• Price band: €33.26 - €370.25
• Average racket price: €131.15
• Produced in Spain: 8%

The extent of this study

Note that Bullpadel has the most rackets included in this study, with 39 rackets. This is likely because they partner with the World Padel Tour to create tournament-specific rackets with different paint jobs.

Drop me a comment to let me know what you think of this practice.

Suffice it to say that these rackets are nearly always the same as the main versions with different aesthetics and higher list prices.

Black Crown and Puma are the least represented with only 7 and 9 rackets represented, respectively.

Note: there are data gaps where some rackets do not have all metadata, so some attributes will not add up to the total number of rackets included in the study.

Seasons

2023 models make up most of the study at least 105 rackets.

Because many manufacturers release on a biannual frequency, there are 73 rackets from the 2022 season.

Prices for 2023 models are 52.66% higher at €163.76, while 2022 models have an average price of €86.23.

Levels

Over half of the rackets are marketed as Advanced level. There are 21 beginner rackets and 40 intermediate rackets. This aligns with the common practice of marketing rackets as more advanced as they are because consumers often appreciate the idea of playing with “pro” rackets.

Advanced rackets cost an average of €165.62, while the average price of an intermediate racket is nearly half, €86.15. Beginner rackets cost €60.49.

Shapes

Round rackets make up the largest shape with 70 rackets. There are 43 teardrops and 10 hybrids represented. Diamond format rackets make up 45 rackets.

Bullpadel has the most diamond-shaped rackets with 20 rackets.

Diamond rackets are the most expensive, coming in at an average price of €164.68.

Style of Play

There are three categories of styles of play: Control, Versatile, and Power.

This study has more or less even representation from each of the three groups.

Adidas has a high percentage of Control rackets with 19 out of their 31 total racket count. Head has 13 Multipurpose rackets out of their total 26 racket count. Bullpadel has 17 Power rackets.

Core hardness

We had some surprises while analyzing the data about racket hardness. Note that this section only analyzes the hardness of the racket’s core, not the full hardness of the racket that extrapolates from the combined sensation of the density of the racket core and the rigidity of the racket’s surface.

Racket core hardness is one key racket attribute. Note that it is hard to compare one brand’s definition of hard, high-density foam versus another.

This study is composed of 71 low-density core rackets, 67 medium-density core rackets, and 29 high-density core rackets. This indicates that many rackets marketed as being power rackets do not, in fact, have high-density cores.

We expected rackets with high-density cores to be the most expensive as these usually are marketed for advanced players. However, we found that rackets with medium-density cores were the most expensive at an average of €157.78 with a wide price band of €33.26 to €330.25. High-density cores had an average price of €138.69, and rackets with soft cores had an average price of €103.96.

Manufacturing Location

Of the eight racket manufacturers included in this study, only one produces their rackets in Spain, Starvie. This translates to 15 rackets produced in Spain and 165 rackets produced in Asia.

This results in an average price of production in Spain at €128.32, lower than the average price of rackets produced in Asia, €131.41.

Next year, we will include more manufacturers to improve our data here.

Conclusion

That’s it for our study of padel racket statistics. Hopefully, the facts and figures we’ve shared have helped describe the amazing development of padel racket technology being used by these great manufacturers.

If you’re interested in exploring the best racket, check out our Racket Reviews List.

Let me know what questions you have by dropping me a comment on YouTube.