Rory Partis examines how current consumer challenges are affecting toy market trends and looks ahead to how Q4 sales might be affected.

Rory Partis, director UK Toys & EuroToys NPD, looks at how the UK is shaping up compared to the rest of Europe and the US, taking into account the issues around Q4 consumer spending.

NPD Retail Tracking data covers 12 markets around the world and, collectively, these countries are up +2% vs. 2021 so far, and moreover up +31% vs. the same period in 2019. On the face of it, the G12 are in a relatively healthy state. Looking at individual country performances, the overall size of the US market is a major factor contributing to those trends – its toy market is twice as big in value as the combined EU7 and is contributing 94% of the growth for the combined G12. The US toy market is also up +45% vs. 2019, ahead of any European country and Rory explains what he thinks is behind this success. In the US toy market, sports licences make up nearly 5% of the overall market, double the share of the UK, and Rory muses whether this could be an area that will increase here with the winter World Cup.

Rory added: “Looking around Europe, there are mixed results in terms of trends. We can see the countries that didn’t perform quite so well during the pandemic are now having a better time. I think we can safely say that Q4 2022 will see some big challenges for the toy market across all countries and the UK is no exception. The only constant for all countries is that Christmas is definitely coming,” he concluded.

To read the full article in November’s Toy World magazine click here.