US toy industry dollar sales increased by 2% or more than US$231 million to US$11.4 billion in sales for January-June 2022, according to The NPD Group. Unit sales declined 6% and ASP of US$11.30 increased 8%.
While the growth to date in 2022 has been somewhat tempered, it comes after two years of record-breaking sales in 2021 and 2020 when US toy industry sales increased 20% and 18%, respectively. The average selling price of US$11.30 was up +8%, somewhat in line with the annual inflation rate. However, this is on top of 6% growth last year and 19% growth the year before.
Four of the 11 supercategories tracked by NPD posted growth in 2022. Compared to 2019, ten supercategories posted a positive 3-year CAGR. Outdoor & Sports Toys continued to be the largest supercategory with $2.7 billion in sales. Plush had the largest dollar gain of US$301 million and the fastest dollar growth of 43%.
“While the toy industry has pulled back to growth of 2%, this is remarkable as only 6 of the 14 industries that NPD tracks posted growth at all in the first half of 2022 following two years of extraordinary consumer spending. This speaks to the resiliency of the US toy industry during these uncertain economic times,” commented Juli Lennett, US Toys Industry Advisor.
Looking at the Plush supercategory, Squishmallows, Magic Mixies and Disney were the main drivers of growth. Squishmallows had 7 of the top 15 selling toys for the total toy industry YTD January-June 2022. Explorative & Other Toys grew 28%. NBA, NFL & MLB dominated the growth in the category with sports trading cards. Action Figures & Accessories also grew double digits. With the release of “Jurassic World: Dominion” in June, the Jurassic World property had the largest growth, followed by Funko Pop! and Sonic the Hedgehog which also had a movie release in April. Lastly, Building Sets was up 8% with LEGO Star Wars driving the largest amount of growth followed by LEGO Creator Expert and LEGO Technic.
“Despite what appears to be some challenging times ahead for the US consumer, I expect the toy industry to continue to outperform other general merchandise categories for the remainder of the year,” Lennett concluded.
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