Rory Partis, director UK Toys & EuroToys, Circana, looks at how even though 2023 proved challenging for the UK toy market, innovation and unexpected best sellers means there is still much to applaud.

We’ve spent the last few weeks here at Circana talking to clients about how 2023 performed, and the overall headline is that it was one of the toughest years for the UK toy market that we’ve ever seen. The year finished at -5% in value, and Q4 was -7%, so the last quarter was actually behind the full year trend. Although as we cover 104 categories and there were over 300 toy manufacturers in our data in 2023, they can’t all have had a tough time. Despite the fact that Q4 was a challenging period, over 130 toy manufacturers added value for the quarter, so we should celebrate these top performers.

The list of top growth manufacturers in Q4 shows that the top manufacturers for value gain are all outside the Top 10 in value size. Winning Moves was the top performing toy manufacturer in Q4, and the company is ranked at No. 27 for value size. Looking down the Top 10 for value gain, there are three games manufacturers, indicating that the category enjoyed a good end to the year.

The figures bear that out: in the final quarter of 2023, sales of games held up well compared to the total market, with a trend of -3% for both Q4 and the month of December. Strong performances from specific categories included family board/action games growing +2% in Q4, card games +4%, pre-school games +6% and electronic handheld games +50%. The growth is spread across a range of different areas and manufacturers too; family board/action games saw innovation such as Twister Air from Hasbro and Monopoly Squishmallows from Winning Moves.

To read the full Circana insight from Toy World’s March issue, which includes best card games, growth manufacturers and highlight items, click here for the full article.