2017 Toy Industry Report Released: How Well Did Star Wars Perform?

The Toy Industry numbers for the 2017 year have been released. We have a summation about how well Star Wars toys performed this past year in relation to recent years. Click through for more.

A few key facts:

Toy sales in the US are up by 1% (which is much less than what was predicted in July when NPD said they expect 4.5% growth).
Toy sales in the UK are down by 3%.
Toy sales are down in France by 1%.
Sales are stagnating in Germany, 0% growth.

Star Wars was the number 2 toy brand in the USA in 2017. It was in the top position for the 9-week holiday period, however. But for the full year, NERF was the #1 brand. Star Wars was the #1 brand in 2016. Star Wars is however still the #1 toy brand worldwide.

The NPD group also breaks down toy sales by category.

Action figure sales are down by 5%; this is the second decline in a row after 2016 which was down by 1%. 1.44 billion to 1.37 billion USD. Sales were lower only in 2012 and 2013. Sales peaked in 2009.

Building sets (Lego) sales are down by 6%, also the second year with a decline after last year’s -3%.
Lego reported a few months ago that they would lay off people.

Overall this indicates that lack of Star Wars sales is one of the main contributors to the decline in action figure and building set sales, especially when corroborated with other reports about a severe decline in shipments of Star Wars toys to the US. JTA reported on this a while ago.

Sources:

Toy Sales by Category
http://www.toyassociation.org/ta/research/data/u-s-sales-data/toys/research-and-data/data/us-sales-data.aspx

2017 Report
https://www.toyassociation.org/PressRoom2/News/2018-news/npd-global-and-us-toy-industry-sales-increase-1-percent-in-2017.aspx

Global Toy Sales 2017
https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/press-releases/2018/toy-sales-globally-and-in-the-us-both-grow-by-1-percent-in-2017-reports-the-npd-group/

Special thanks to JTA reader Thomas O. for the summary.

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