Melissa Symonds of Circana spoke to Toy World about the first half of 2023, revealing which categories have shown the strongest growth, and looks ahead to how the second half of the year might pan out.

Games & Puzzles, Plush, Building Sets and Explorative & Other Toys have been the “supercategories” which gained value this year despite the overall UK Toy Market being down. The top property is Pokémon which is also growing double digits.

The Plush supercategory is the second fastest growing, based on value gained, and is up +11% in value this year compared to the same period a year ago. This strong performance comes on top of double-digit growth in both 2022 and 2021. It is currently the sixth largest supercategory in the UK in terms of revenue, just behind Dolls and ahead of Explorative Toy and Action Figures. The fastest growing property in Plush is Squishmallows, now the number one property within Plush and the number eight property across total toys.

Building Sets remains one of the most popular categories in the UK toy market, currently the largest supercategory in the UK, up +2% YTD June with strong growth from licences such as Star Wars, Marvel and Minecraft, as well as Lego Speed Champion and Lego Icon brands. The category has the highest level of new items, with over 50% of value sales coming from new items in the last year. Explorative & Other Toys is also up +3% in value with collectibles such as 5 Surprise Mini Brands and Panini Stickers driving growth, as well as the hot new launch from MGAMiniverse.

To hear more about the top performing brands and properties this year, best-sellers this summer and Melissa’s expectations for Q3 and Q4, read the full Circana insight here.