Toy sales grew by 5.9% in the UK during 2015, according to figures released by the British Toy & Hobby Association today at this year’s toy fair at Olympia.
The British toy industry is now valued at £3.2 billion and continues to be the largest in Europe, according to the NPD Group (providers of consumer and retail data tracking services).
The £150 million increase over last year has mainly been attributed to the popularity of toys based on films, such as, Minions, Marvel Avengers, Jurassic World and Star Wars. Sales of toys based on film tie-ins were up 27% during 2015 and up 89% since 2013.
Disney’s Frozen has continued to be hot licensed property. Frozen was the number one licensed intellectual property of the year and helped drive this sector of the market up 12%. Licensed toy sales represented 28% of the market in 2015.
A staggering 58,000 new toys were introduced during 2015, a seemingly worthwhile effort as it represents £1 billion, 31% of overall sales for the year.
It will come as no surprise that December was the toy industry’s busiest month at the checkouts, be they online or in-store, 26% of toy sales were made in the month of the big day.
More shoppers than ever wanted to take advantage of using devices connected to the internet rather than queuing at the tills, with 37% of sales being conducted online, an increase of 5% in the last 12 months.
The year’s best seller by value was once again LEGO Minifigures, while Shopkins 2 packs were second. In third place there was LEGO’s Disney Frozen Elsa Sparkling Ice Castle and forth place went to Hasbro’s Pie Face game.