Steinway files for an IPO to bring its pricey pianos to China’s luxury listeners
Enter the piano-verse… The maker of Steinway pianos is going from the concert stage to the stock exchange. Last week Steinway Musical Instruments filed to go public on the NYSE (the exact date isn’t set). Its IPO comes as luxury spending booms, particularly in China.
- Old keys: Steinways sell for between $60K and $2.4M. Last year the 169-year-old brand scored nearly $60M in profits, a 14% jump from 2020.
- New tricks: Steinway’s self-playing Spirio accounted for a third of its piano sales last year. Two out of three Spirio owners can’t even play piano, but they can stream live concerts or classic Duke Ellington shows at cocktail parties.
Powerhouse performers, meet luxury listeners… Steinway’s come far from its NYC roots. The company built its brand on partnerships with star pianists (Billy Joel) and iconic venues (Sydney Opera House): 97% of pianists use Steinways in concert. Steinway ships pianos anywhere on Earth for its nearly 2K elite “Steinway Artists” (it even sent one to an iceberg). But to expand, Steinway is focusing on homebuyers. Increasingly they’re in China:
- More music: Today China has 7X as many pianists as the US. That trend’s accelerating: 30M kids in China study piano, compared to fewer than 10M in the entire rest of the world.
- Bigger spending: Luxury spending in China’s surging: consumers worth $30M+ — Steinway’s sweet spot — have doubled in the past five years.
It’s good to sell pianos, but better to sell luxury… Steinway calls itself a luxury brand first and a piano brand second. The reason: the luxe goods market is 135X as big as the musical-instrument market, and it's growing 3X as fast. Steinway mentioned China 156 times in its IPO filing: by catering to China’s music-loving upper class, the piano powerhouse hopes to grow its customer base of big-spending piano lovers.