Dolls fuel growth as global toy sales hit $27.4bn in 2018 to date

Across the 13 international toy markets tracked by global information company The NPD Group, toy industry sales grew $409m to $27.4bn year-to-date, a 1.5% increase over the same time period last year (January to September). 

The bulk of this growth can be attributed to sales in the Americas (US, Canada, Brazil and Mexico), which is up 3.3%. Elsewhere, Europe (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, UK) and Australia saw declines of 1.6% and 1.9%, respectively.

Category-wise, dolls saw the strongest dollar growth, with an increase of 14% to $3.84bn, while the fastest growing supercategory is Youth Electronics, with a 16% increase to $528m.

In dolls, LOL Surprise continues to drive the majority of the international growth, with dollar growth for the MGA Entertainment property being more than five times the growth of the second best performing growth property.

In Youth Electronics, Fingerlings is driving the majority of the international dollar growth, which is more than 10 times that of the second best-performing growth property.

Of the supercategories that did not perform well across the 13 international toy markets, the largest dollar decline came from outdoor and sports toys, down 2.9% while the fastest declining supercategory was Plush, down 5.4%.

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