CHILDREN BUSINESS SPECIAL... Digital shift pushes toy brands to India

Digital shift pushes toy brands to India

Mumbai: Barbies and Hot Wheels are so passe, kids these days will tell you. For them, the toy story isn’t complete without the rush of new brands that have recently entered the market. Hamleys, Simba and Hape are just some of the brands that have come in recently, even as a whole host of others, including Brio, will hit shop shelves in weeks and months to come. What explains this sudden interest in India? If experts are to be believed, toy brands are shifting focus to India and other emerging markets mainly because kids in the West are getting hooked to tablets and smartphones. “The fact that the organised toy market in India is small is an added advantage,” says Arvind Singhal, chairman of Technopak Advisors. “Also, India has one of the largest baby populations, which spells an opportunity for toy companies.” The slowing economy in the West, particularly Europe, has also led to a slowdown in the overall toy market, prompting toy makers to head into Asia, says Rajaram, category head - toys, stationery & sports, Landmark. This shift, in turn, has started redefining the way toys are retailed in India. For one, faced with competition from e-commerce companies, book store chains such as Landmark and Crossword have slowly been morphing into family stores, the spotlight increasingly shifting to kids. Most of these stores are going big on toy retailing. Indeed, Landmark, run by the Tata group, has lined up as many as six brands for launch over the next two months. In order to make toys a more edutainment item, Landmark also plans to sell them based on a kids intelligence quotient. “We plan to recommend toys based on a kid’s skill. For this, we will have doctors in the store who will be able to recommend a particular toy based on some preliminary tests. But rolling this out may take some time,” says Rajaram. Among others, the Mahindra group, which runs Mom & Me stores, and Reliance, which has a franchise for Hamleys stores, have been ramping up their toy offerings. Not for nothing are toys a `11,000-13,500 crore market in India already and expected to touch `19,000 crore by 2015, says Prasar Sharma, founder, Exelixi Management Company, which bought Simba toys to India, quoting an in-house research. “Rise in disposable income and aspirational lifestyle is another reason the global players are making a beeline to India,” he says. Interestingly, these players have also reduced prices significantly to be able to take on unorganised players, which dominate the market. They are also rolling out smaller ticket size toys to lure more customers. But it won’t be long before digital toys catch up in India, too, taking some sheen off the market, cautions Singhal. Until then, the players would be looking to make the most of the market. Kids, for sure, won’t be complaining.

Nupur Anand DNA120225