Emerging destinations to grow biggest among toys and games markets

Asia and Latin America growth rates are expected to beat overall toys and games figures, based on a Euromonitor report.

According to a Euromonitor report, the global games and toys industry would grow by an average of 3 percent per year from 2013 to 2018. Already, emerging markets such as Latin America, the Asia Pacific region and Eastern Europe have exceeded the 2013 average for their sales growth rates.

Euromonitor notes that existing and expected increases in overall disposable income per capita will result in significant gains in the annual toy and game spend of parents on their children.

This link between disposable income and spend on toys and games per child is most evident in developed economies. While Western Europe and North America are expected to decline somewhat in terms of number of potential customers as the population ages in these regions, spend per child is expected to increase. Spend per child in the EU, the US, Japan, and other developed markets is still far higher than in other markets, making pricing there more friendly in many cases.

In many markets, more people start having families later in life and have fewer children, which translates to more spending per child. For countries where there are older women who give birth are the average, spending per child is higher. Typically, more children in a household means less spending per child.

So where is the sweet spot between number of children and disposable income that could lead to the highest growth? Euromonitor noted that Latin America may be particularly ripe for expansion. Of particular note are Brazil, which is expected to grow by an annual average of 7 percent through 2017, and Mexico, whose under-14 population is expected to grow to about 32 million. As for other markets, while the economy remains challenging, Russia is expected to have the highest increase in its younger population until 2018.

See a comparison table of video game suppliers on GlobalSources.com