Toy Industry

The global industry that designs, manufactures and sells toys, shaped strongly by seasonal demand around gift giving holidays such as Christmas, Easter and Three Kings Day. In 2005 United States toy sales reached about 22.9 billion dollars, with children aged 8 to 12 alone accounting for roughly 221 million dollars in annual spending, and manufacturing is heavily concentrated in China, which makes about 70 percent of the world's toys through more than 8,000 toy firms concentrated in Guangdong Province's Pearl River Delta, supplying about 75 percent of toys sold in the United States. Major retailers such as Toys R Us once operated more than 1,500 stores across 30 countries with annual revenues exceeding 13 billion dollars, and the industry has faced growing competition from digital entertainment, prompting many toy makers to add electronic features and online connectivity and, more recently, to contend with distributed manufacturing that lets consumers 3D print toys from open source designs.