Non-USA-Resident Checking in! Al-yoo-min-ee-um!
Here are my observances, purely from my limited experience in the UK yoyo scene:
In the UK Japanese models aren’t a really big thing. Granted you do see people here and there with a YYR or two, but due to the lack of availability and the price, most of the brands like YYR/sOMEThING/TP aren’t really heard of as much. Brands like Audley, Yoyojoker and other smaller asian brands aren’t really mentioned at all.
We have one main UK store providing all of us with yoyos run by a fantastic bloke named Richie, and he always orders in a very wide variety of throws. So we get access to pretty much all the common names and new releases, so there are very few throws that come out that we aren’t able to aquire.
CLYW are fairly popular and I’d probably say they’re the most popular in the UK. I was suprised at how quickly the Yetis sold out especially, and they always dissapear off the B/S boards quicker than any other brand, and usually at prices closer to retail.
Onedrop is also very popular and we get a decent amount of their models coming over to the stores, as well as on the B/S/T forum. For some reason the purple OD’s seem to sell out almost instantly… getting your hands on a purple Onedrop is like finding gold, haha. Due to the high price of CLYW I’d say that you’re probably more likely to see younger people throwing Onedrops or YYF for the most part instead.
YYF is obviously popular, as it seems to be everywhere. The models seem to sell well and a lot of people throw YYF, but they don’t seem to have the outright adoration of CLYW and OD, nor do they get snapped up as quickly or for as high prices on the B/S boards. That being said the Shutter sells fantastically well and I’m sure must be one of the best selling throws in the UK in recent memory.
Brands like G2, Monkeyfinger, General Yo, Yoyoofficer, Yoyojam, Yomega, Duncan and the like aren’t talked about all that much. We do get them, but they don’t get near the same attention as CLYW and Onedrop. General-Yo is probably the most popular of those aforementioned, perhaps because Armani is the General-Yo representative over here spreading the word, and perhaps due to the collectability of them. The prices tend to put a few people off though…
C3 seems to be fairly popular among some members, and tend to get more mention than the brands mentioned above, as well as sell faster, but they still don’t sell out like the more popular brands do, nor get the same discussion time.
So to sum up, I personally, from my observances, would say that the popularity goes thusly in the top-5:
- CLYW
- Onedrop
- Yoyofactory
- C3yoyodesign
- General Yo
As far as getting amped about contests, there isn’t much discussion about USA contests going on over here. Most of the excitement is reserved for UK Nationals, EYYC and Worlds. Due to the European location of worlds this year I’m especially looking forward to it to see some new names and faces crop up. 
