State of the Toy Industry 2016

What a year the toy industry has had! Two solid years of growth in an industry that most were reporting doom and gloom for! That is great for all of us! I do believe that Star Wars is driving the majority of this growth but I also attribute it to the slew of Marvel and DC Comics movies that are being delivered each year with great new action heroes for both girls and boys!

That said, it is really nice to see that Mattel, Hasbro and SpinMaster are all thriving in this environment and finding their niche to succeed.  

Mattel has really orchestrated a great turn around with new licenses for the boys world, entering new categories and re-establishing Barbie as the queen of the fashion dolls (I think she never was anything less!).  Mattel also has a new focus on converting internal intellectual properties to enhanced content and I really believe that this will serve them well in the future. Their boys world is solid with Jurassic Park, Toy Story and Warner Brothers DC Comics, Add the longevity of WWE and Minecraft and they have great properties to create with!

Hasbro has the power of Star Wars and Disney Princess plus a real focus on entertainment and converting their in house properties to content, be it movie, webisode, etc...Plus for the first time in countless years, Hasbro has a really powerful girls license in Disney as well as the power of Sesame Street in Preschool.  I see lots of strength here to continue.

Spinmaster seems to be the place for real technology toys with their focus on Robots, tech dogs and dinos and also with Air Hogs, not to mention their HUGE holiday hit of Hatchimals.  Hatchimals are the Cabbage Patch of yesteryear with parents fighting for them, paying twice their retail for them and even bidding crazy high prices on eBay!  Spinmaster takes the most chances in product but is really in a great position in the industry as a result!

I can't wait to see what the end of 2016 brings all three of these companies and all of the other players in the industry too! Should be fun to watch! Stay tuned and Happy Holidays!