Source: Shanghai Securities News·China Securities
It is learned on April 6 from Shanghai Securities that in the past three years, the compound growth rate of the export business of the toy industry on Alibaba International Station has reached 15%.
In 2022, the intelligent toy market has reached 14.1 billion US dollars, and it is expected to increase to 16.5 billion US dollars in 2023. Among them, smart toys embedded with artificial intelligence (AI) technology that can realize custom programming are widely welcomed by users of different age groups.
The cross-border index of Alibaba International Station shows that the overall trend of the global toy market is positive. In 2022, the sales revenue of the global toy industry increased by 12% year-on-year, and the average sales price increased by 8%. In terms of categories, driven by the two major needs of raising babies scientifically and cross-age kidults (generally referring to the new generation of fun-loving adults aged 20 to 40), the growth of intelligent interactive toys is particularly rapid.
Recently, Alibaba International Station and Shantou Toy Association have joined hands to open the “Shantou Chenghai” toy channel to create a never-ending toy exhibition, and promote the transformation and upgrading of Chenghai toy industry belt through full-link digital foreign trade services.
Chenghai District, Shantou is known as the “Toy Capital of China”, contracting 70% of the world’s toy manufacturing. In the local area, there are 43,000 toy merchants, with an annual output value of 58.79 billion yuan. In Shantou City’s “three new, two special and one big” new industry layout, the toy creative industry is listed as one of the two characteristic industries, and it is clear that Chenghai District will be the focus of implementing the digital transformation pilot of industrial clusters. More and more local foreign trade manufacturing companies have begun to move to cross-border e-commerce.
Wu Yun, head of Maternal and Baby Toys Operations at Alibaba International Station, believes that under the sluggish growth in European and American markets, toy consumption is extending to emerging markets represented by Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa. The huge number of children, low per capita consumption and good economic development prospects make the emerging toy market an important growth point for the global toy industry in the future.
The data shows that in 2022, educational toys achieved a year-on-year growth of 12.7%, and shifted from traditional educational toys to scientific and educational STEM toys, such as programmable robots, scientific research and excavation toys, and 3D printing assembly toys. In addition to intelligence, green and low-carbonization is another significant trend. Major toy brands are increasing their investment in environmentally friendly materials.