Babolat

Babolat
Industry	Sports equipment
Founded	1875; 149 years ago
Headquarters	Lyons, France
Products	Racquets, strings, accessories and shoes.
Revenue	€141.2 million (2014)
Number of employees	369
Website	babolat.com

Babolat /ˈbɑːboʊlɑː/ is a French tennis, badminton, and padel equipment company, headquartered in Lyon, best known for its strings and tennis racquets which are used by professional and recreational players worldwide. The company has made strings since 1875, when Pierre Babolat created the first strings made of natural gut. Babolat continued to focus on strings until 1994, when it became a "total tennis" company, producing also racquet frames and selling them in Europe. It then expanded sales to Japan, and later to the United States in 2000. Sales of Babolat racquets increased rapidly in North America and Europe. Babolat is also a pioneer in connected sport technology and launched a connected tennis racket in 2014^[1] and a connected wrist-worn tennis wearable with PIQ in 2015.^[2] The Babolat Pop is used worldwide, and one of the leaders in tennis sensors.

Notable products

Strings

Some of the strings produced by Babolat include RPM Blast, one of the most popular polyester strings known for its spin potential, and VS Gut, a leading and original natural gut string.

Racquets

Babolat's current tennis racquet line-up includes Pure Aero (formerly AeroPro Drive), known for its spin potential and usage by Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz, Pure Drive, a power-oriented racquet used by players such as Andy Roddick and Li Na, and Pure Strike, a control-oriented racquet used by players such as Dominic Thiem.