Steinway & Sons, Summary

Steinway & Sons, one of the finest piano manufacturers all around the world. The company was
established in the year 1853 by the Steinway family, was made public in 1996 by Messina and
Kyle Kirkland after they held the company from different owners. It is the piano segment of the
Steinway Musical Instruments Company that also owns Selmer Instruments and other
manufacturers of band instruments. As far the sales of the company are concern, were reduced to
7.6% of the previous year, still achieving a business of $169 million. The growth of the company
has increased to 6–7% a year, while the company’s financial performance was improved as well
with the Earning per share on average, raised to 11%. Still then, the financial performance for the
overall company in 2002 was slightly below industry averages. Their most valuable asset is the
Steinway brand. Beside of the fact, that only 2% of all keyboard unit sales in the United States,
the company had achieved 25% of the sales dollars and 35% of the profits taking the market
share of the company over 80%. As an example, 98% of the piano soloists at 30 of the world’s
major symphony orchestras chose a Steinway grand during the 2000/2001 concert season and the
top pianists all over the world opt for the Steinway. The employees of the company at
manufacturing plants in New York and Germany are working for an average of years, even their
previous generation used to work for them. As far the external environment of the company is
concern, the piano market is typically segmented into grand pianos and upright pianos. Piano
customers can also be divided as per their usage of the products into professional artists, amateur
pianists, and institutions such as concert halls, universities, and music schools. By the passage of
time, new markets and competitors have developed for the Steinways in Asia and other regions
of the world since its aspects an important growth opportunity. However, the sales of the piano
industry were dropped by 40% between 1980 and 1995 since the of increase electronic keyboard
sales and have been going ups and downs with time and global economy. As far as the
competition is concerned, many piano makers emerged in the United States till 1992. The
Baldwin Piano and Organ Company was Steinway’s primary U.S. competitor. It offers a full line
of pianos under the Baldwin and Wurlitzer through 700 dealers with inexpensive upright pianos
and handcrafted grand pianos as well. Its brand had been well respected and endorsed many
artists. Their Annual sales turnover are in the $100 million range. In the Europe region, only
Bösendorfer of Austria and Fazioli of Italy gives the competition to the Steinways. In the Asian
Region, despite there are many competitors of Steinways, Yamaha, one of the largest piano
manufacturers with sales of over $1 billion and a global market share of about 35% has been able
to compete with Steinway with their high-quality piano manufacturing and products under their
brand.