Petrof is a Czech piano manufacturer founded in 1864. It is the leading European piano manufacturer, exporting to more than 60 countries.
The company was founded in 1864 in Hradec Králové, Kingdom of Bohemia, by Antonín Petrof (d. 1915), who had apprenticed at Viennese companies such as Heintzman & Co., Friedrich Ehrbar and Schweighofer.
The owner Antonín Petrof was awarded an imperial and royal warrant of appointment to the court of Austria-Hungary. In 1924 the company was exporting its pianos to Europe, Japan, China, Australia and South America.
At the World Exhibition 1934 in Brussels, the Petrof instruments won the gold medal. At that time, approximately 400 people worked at their factory.
In 1948, Petrof was nationalized. The company was returned to the Petrof family in 1991. Petrof is currently led by two sisters from the fifth generation of the Petrof family and produces annually approximately 2,000 grand pianos and 12,000 upright pianos. Petrof is known for several innovations, such as ways to adjust the mechanics and particularly pressure point through magnetic systems.
Learn more at Petrof USA Home (petrof-usa.com)
Walk through any piano showroom today and ask the staff what's bringing new customers through the door. The answer, with surprising frequency, is a name — Yunchan Lim — or a platform — TikTok. The viral explosion of classical piano performance on short-form video is not a marketing campaign dreamed up by record labels or conservatories. It is an organic, viewer-driven phenomenon that is reshaping who listens to classical music, who buys pianos, and what they want to play when they get home.
Piano manufacturing is, by its nature, a materials-intensive craft. A modern grand piano contains roughly 12,000 individual components. It requires carefully selected hardwoods — spruce, maple, beech, walnut — sourced from forests in multiple countries. It uses felt, leather, metal alloys, and chemical finishes. Building one well takes skilled labor spanning months.
In January 2026, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas included something that would have seemed out of place a decade ago: a piano technology exhibit generating genuine buzz alongside the televisions, smartphones, and AI gadgets that dominate the show floor. The products on display — connected instruments, app-integrated learning systems, multi-device MIDI setups — weren't novelties. They were the direction the piano industry is heading.
