Although the total UK toy market performance remains aligned with other countries, there are some notable differences in areas.

Toy World caught up with Melissa Symonds, executive director, UK Toys, Euro Toys at Circana about how toy sales are across the world. Due to global economic challenges, performance is aligned with countries but areas such as licences and collectibles differ.

The UK Toy market has declined -4% in value YTD September 2023 as the cost of living continues to impact disposable income spending for consumers, while poor summer weather affected sales in Q3. However, this is in-line with the rest of the European performance, which is also down -4%. In addition, Europe is significantly ahead of North America, which is down -8%. The Global toy market, worth $107b in 2022, had been growing since 2019, but is now adjusting as consumers find less money in their pockets due to inflation and a changing social media landscape; consumers now tend to discover new products in different ways. Out of the 13 countries where Circana tracks toy sales, only three are in growth in 2023 – Mexico, Netherlands and Italy.

In the UK, certain elements of the toy market are performing better than the rest of Europe. Licences continues to enjoy a very strong presence, growing +4% in the UK Toy market vs. +1% in EU5 (UK, France, Germany, Italy & Spain). Licences have a higher share of the UK toy market compared to other European countries: they currently have a 31.5% share of UK value sales, similar to the 31% share in US, but much higher than the 24.3% licensed share in France, which has the lowest share in Europe.

To read more about the Licensed market and the particular licences rising in popularity, as well as the Collectibles space, click here for the full article which appeared in the November issue of Toy World.