Who's the biggest knife maker?

[Omega Leather Works]

I was reading a thread the other day and somebody mentioned that Benchmade is a larger company than Spyderco.

That got me wondering... How did he know this? Is it just common info? If so how do the other companies rank?

Who's the biggest?

 

[marcinek]

Maker or seller?

 

[galactorrhea]

I guess you'd just search around and try and find their respective annual revenues and compare from there

 

[marcinek]

I guess you'd just search around and try and find their respective annual revenues and compare from there

That would probably require them being public companies. Are any of them? Never really thought about it.

 

[heavyfoldersarebest]

I would say KAI, Kershaw, ZT and Shun, big selection.

 

[liamstrain]

If you include kitchen knives, I would guess Kai, Global, Henckels or Wustoff.

 

[9blades]

I'd have to say kai.....

 

[Omega Leather Works]

Maker or seller?

I'm talking KAI, Benchmade, Spyderco, Boker etc...

For all I know the biggest company could be Taylor or something.

For clarity let's define big as revenue and/or people employed.

 

[Omega Leather Works]

Or Frost...

 

[9blades]

Or Frost...

I thought that at first to, but technically they don't actually produce their own knives......

 

[Modoc ED]

Case.

 

[zl1]

I would guess Gerber

 

[mcrow]

This is a really tough topic to know much about since pretty much all of the companies involved are private.


If we go by sales, I'd probably have to chose from KAI, Victorinox, and Gerber are the likely ones if we leave out Cutco and the like.

From what I read it sounds like Gerber is likely the biggest knifemaker that isn't primarily a kitchen knife company.

 

[yablanowitz]

Production numbers - Victorinox, hands down. As far as number of employees, maybe not. The Victorinox factory is highly automated. As far as Benchmade and Spyderco go, the last employment numbers I saw were over 200 for BM and under 70 for Spyderco, not counting makers they contract with in other countries.

 

[hardheart]

Victorinox. Vic & Wegner factories, over 350 SAK models, multitool lines, and Forschner kitchen knives used in homes and commercial facilities. This article says Ibach produces 17 million SAK parts every year. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20078593-52/where-the-swiss-army-knife-gets-made/ I remember reading that they produced something like 12,000 Classics a day, but I may be off on the number.

 

[Bmurray]

Is'nt Cutco the parent company of Kbar?

 

[mqqn]

Biggest is probably Victorinox.

best

mqqn

 

[CWL]

Victorinox handsdown.

Here's their 2006 daily production from Wiki:

34,000 Swiss Army knives, 38,000 multi-tools, and 30,000 household, kitchen, and knives per workday.

There is probaby some superfactory in China making more than that, but those knives will be generic junk that gets sold under hundreds of names and brands globally.

 

[glyde]

Is'nt Cutco the parent company of Kbar?

Alcas is the parent company of both Cutco and Ka Bar.

 

[mcrow]

Production numbers - Victorinox, hands down. As far as number of employees, maybe not. The Victorinox factory is highly automated. As far as Benchmade and Spyderco go, the last employment numbers I saw were over 200 for BM and under 70 for Spyderco, not counting makers they contract with in other countries.

That's a thing to consider. Some of these companies have a small number of employees due to outsourcing most if not all of their manufacturing. So some of these companies design their knives, market them, mange production (buying matrials, shipping, warehousing...ect) and provide customer/retail support but they don't have the overhead of manufacturing staff and equipment.

Most of the biggest knife makers have their own large factories.