Last Updated on December 9, 2021 by Danielle
NPD announced global growth in toy sales of 3 percent in 2017 thus far.
The NPD Group, a worldwide analytics firm, reported that the worldwide toy industry sales showed a three percent growth in performance for the first half of 2017 up through June 2017. The NPD forecasts modest global toy industry growth to be about four percent over the course of all of 2017.
Comparing mid-year performance by country, Mexico and Russia grew the most. Mexico’s toy growth was 20 percent while Russia grew 14 percent. The United States and Canada grew only 3 percent in direct comparison. Interestingly, the United Kingdom and Australia reported declines in performance.
In the second half of the year, entertainment – specifically family friendly movies – will help to drive toy industry growth to achieve about four percent growth overall. Specifically, we have Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Spider-Man, Transformers: The Last Knight, Cars 3, My Little Pony: The Movie, and The Lego Ninjago Movie, which will all serve to drive movie-tie toy sales and give the toy industry a much needed boost.
Thanks to the global popularity of L.O.L. Surprise, Pokemon trading cards, and Hatchimals, the collectibles segment had double figures growth for the first part of the year. On a global scale, collectible sales grew fifteen percent. Collectibles comprise nearly ten percent of sales in the entire market, which indicates just how big and important the collectibles market has become in recent years.
Analyzing individual toy categories, Games and Puzzles was the best performer with an increase of 19 percent in sales. In the All Other Toys supercategory, sales increased 10 percent, driven by the fidget spinner toy craze. Meanwhile, the Outdoor and Sports Toys category saw a modest increase in sales of 2 percent. The Construction/Building Sets category dropped 6 percent in sales, while the Action Figures category was also down 9 percent.
Frederique Tutt, a global toy industry analyst at The NPD Group, stated that we saw the real impact that social media can have in acting as a real driving force in creating viral toy successes, such as in the case with the fidget spinners that went on to become a massive global toy phenomenon. Previously something like fidget spinners would have taken months to catch fire around the world. But nowadays with a powerful tool like social media, those geographic boundaries are essentially lifted and the whole world can find and be delighted by new toys simultaneously without that big delay. Social media can take a trend and jump-start it and allow it to spread quickly like a wildfire and we experienced this first-hand with the fidget spinners. This very fact stands as a challenge and opportunity for the toy industry.
So as of mid-year, what were the Top 10 Worldwide Toy Brands based on total sales? These were the Top 10 worldwide toy brands: (1) Pokemon, (2) Star Wars, (3) NERF, (4) Barbie, (5) Paw Patrol, (6) Batman, (7) Hot Wheels, (8) LEGO City, (9) LEGO Star Wars, (10) Playmobil. These results are based on retail tracking from January through June 2017.
Source: The NPD Group
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