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Viking Pools Swallows Up Royal Fiberglass Pools With Another Acquisition

July 2nd, 2012

1 min read

By Marcus Sheridan

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Well, it appears every 6 months I'm going to be writing an article about how Viking Pools has decided to purchase another fiberglass pool manufacturer, with Royal Fiberglass Pools being the next small company to hand over its keys to the industry giant.

Over the past 2 years, Viking Pools has also purchased Blue Hawaiian Pools and Trilogy Pools, which, considering they already own Composite Pool Corporation and Crystal Palace Pools, the list is starting to get pretty long.

To be completely frank, I'm rather confused by Viking's latest purchase. A leading competitor of Viking compared the acquisition to "an 800 lb gorilla gaining 20 lbs," and to be honest, I'd agree.

As someone who writes and teaches about business, branding, and marketing daily, I scratch my head at this move in a line of "interesting" decisions by Viking Pools over the last few years.

Whether or not the purchase will help the Viking brand in the future only time will tell, but at some point I'd like to see Viking spend as much money educating consumers about the value of fiberglass pools as they do buying up the "little guys" of the industry.

With fiberglass pools making up less than 10% of the marketshare (for inground swimming pools) here in the United States, manufacturers would be smart to turn their efforts towards informing the public of the pros of fiberglass swimming pools, just as Australia has done, where fiberglass accounts for over 50% of the marketplace.

By so doing, there would be way more than enough to go around for everyone. In fact, if the market just reached 20% in the US these manufacturers wouldn't be able to come close to keeping up with the demand.

But alas, I'm just a pool guy in Virginia. ;-)

Time will tell folks, time will tell.

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Marcus Sheridan

River Pools® manufactures fiberglass pool shells and does not install pools. Pools are installed by locally owned and operated dealers and franchisees. The relationship between the dealers and franchisees to River Pools® is that of an independent contractor. River Pools Franchising LLC (Franchising) provides independently owned and operated River Pool franchisees with the right to market the River Pools brand of pool shells as a franchisee. Franchising does not manufacture pool shells. Due to the unprecedented and historic growth of the River Pools brand, this website contains an abundance of information that has been created over the last decade. Some of the content on this site may reflect prices, perspectives, processes, entities, and names that were relevant at the time but may not be as relevant today.

Consumers should consult their local installer (independent dealer or franchisee) for the most accurate and updated information based on the unique conditions of their property. Consumers should verify specifications with the installing dealer rather than relying on the information on this website, which is not intended to be a final specification.