The Rs 7,500 crore ($16.65 billion) Indian toy industry that was once reeling under competition from cheap Chinese products is pulling out all stops to bounce back into children\\\'s reckoning with innovative and better designed toys. It hopes to do better in the future as Chinese products are expected to become costlier.
The Rs 7,500 crore ($16.65 billion) Indian toy industry that was once reeling under competition from cheap Chinese products is pulling out all stops to bounce back into children's reckoning with innovative and better designed toys. It hopes to do better in the future as Chinese products are expected to become costlier.
According to Toy Association of India (TAI) president Sunil Nanda, the demand for Indian toys is growing at 15-20 percent per year as toys have now become a lifestyle product.
The industry that has been growing in India at 20 percent year-on-year needs to focus on co-branding, corporate promotion and merchandising with firms to provide the necessary fillip to the industry, Nanda felt.
Though the Chinese toys remain dominant players in the Indian market, Nanda said due to the high import duty and the dwindling situation of the rupee against the dollar, the Indian market has somewhat recovered from the threat of the cheaper Chinese toys.
Ninety percent of the work in the toy industry is at the micro level and five percent each at the medium and small scale levels.
According to a study by industry body Assocham, the size of India's toy industry may touch Rs. 13,000 crore by 2015 compared with Rs.7,500 crore in 2012. It said the industry employs around 2.5 million people.
India mostly manufactures soft toys and educational toys and exports them to countries in Southeast Asia, Africa, the US, the Middle East, Europe and Australia.
The industry is happy at clocking around Rs 600 crore business at the recent seventh edition of Toy Biz International, a business-to-business fair that saw a 7,000 footfall.
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