Today, Tackle Trade World has announced that Okuma is planning to expand its European business with a range of rods. Okuma is a highly recognised reel manufacturer in Europe however, they are not renowned for rod manufacture despite selling volume elsewhere in the world. Importing rods in any numbers to Europe for the first time is sure to raise the brand’s profile here in the UK.
TTW believes that we can expect to see a high profile branding campaign from Okuma in the new year and that this move will coincide with that.
Okuma has its manufacturing plant based in China with a considerable resource of 2,000 employees. In addition, they have a research and development plant in Taiwan, so they definitely have the ‘grunt’ to make this happen. I would initially expect to see rods that translate well across international boundaries (such as spinning rods for example) before we see any region specific rod genres, like carp rods.
We look forward to see what the new year brings.