Last year was not very playful for the beleaguered U.S. toy industry, with sales falling almost 4 percent, market research firm NPD Group said Sunday.
In 2005, total industry sales declined to $21.3 billion from $22.1 billion the year before, NPD analyst Anita Frazier said at the American International Toy Fair in New York.
That qualified as a "so-so" year for toy makers, who have been grappling with intense price competition, slipping revenues, higher costs and store closings.
Frazier said the infant and preschool category had the largest sales, grabbing almost 15 percent market share in 2005. Some of the year's best-selling toys were Cabbage Patch dolls, the Roboraptor -- a robotic dinosaur -- and the Amazing Amanda interactive baby doll.
She said Star Wars, Dora the Explorer and Batman were the toy properties with the greatest growth for the year, and licensing continued to play a important role, with licensed toys comprising 26 percent of total industry dollar sales.
For 2006, Frazier expects mass and discount retailers, and online retailers to increase their market share. She also said toy makers were expected to continue to battle for the attention of children who are outgrowing traditional toys at an increasingly young age, turning their attention to video games, DVDs and electronic gadgets such as MP3 players.
Educational toys should continue to be a hot area for toy makers, she said.
"It is not too young to start thinking about college at age 4," she said jokingly.
And with the "public noise" growing over the amount of time children spend in front of television and computer screens, she said it presents toy makers with an opportunity to provide children with outdoor and sports toys.