Star Wars drove the big jump in toy sales in Canada, the NPD Group says. The toy market really has to thank the Disney franchise for the huge success.
The toy industry market a nice rise of sale by 6% in Canada for 2016. This made toy sales reach a total of $1.9 billion. That’s still way behind the US toy market where sales are $20.4 billion.
Still, the Canadian toy market outpaced the US in terms of growth. The US toy market netted a 5% raise. Most of the raise comes from the jump in prices.
The biggest raise in prices was for video games – a whopping 30% to 40%. Retail toy prices rose by 7%. The main reason is that most toys are imported in US dollars so the changes in the currency drive the prices.
Even so, there were a lot of toys to gather interest. Sales of dolls for Hasbro jumped a lot more than Mattel’s thanks to Disney’s help. Reportedly Disney didn’t like that Mattel focused too much on its own dolls and changed the deal and brought dolls to Hasbro.
NPD says that one third of all toy sales are tied to entertainment properties like movies. Naturally, Star Wars was the most popular. It’s actually the biggest toy property in the history of Canada. The main winners of that are LEGO and Hasbro.
Stuffed animals also enjoy attention. Spin Master’s Hatchimals were among the hottest toys in Canada, too. Also, the toys from Paw Patrol are the biggest seller for Spin Master in Canada.
