Rising Cost Of Raw Materials And Labor To Promote Toy Prices

At the China Import and Export Fair, hundreds of toys

Bobbi, MATTEL's manufacturer (MAT) and Transformers brand owner HAS, have raised their prices earlier this year because Chinese factories are shifting the rising cost of raw materials and labor.

Hargreaves, chief operating officer of HASBRO, said in April 21st that the company raised the price of toys by 6% to 7% in February this year, David Hargreaves.

MATTEL, the world's largest toy manufacturer, said in April 15th that it had raised its product price by a few percentage points.

MATTEL buys products from Chinese toy suppliers, including sun rising international holdings limited.

Le Yumin Rockowitz, the chief executive of HK:494, the world's largest toy supplier, said earlier that the company would pass on any increase in factory manufacturing costs to its customers. (Bruce)

Li Feng supplies toys to retailers such as WAL-MART (WMT) and Taghit (TGT).

"The price of every toy product is rising," Le Yumin said in an interview in May 19th.

He also said that about half of MATTEL's toy products to retailers were produced in the Chinese market.

The biggest toy in the world

According to the data released by the China Toy Association, there are about 8000 toy companies in the Chinese market.

In the first 4 months of this year, the total value of toys exported to China was US $2 billion 600 million, an increase of 17% over the same period last year.

China's General Administration of Customs said that this growth rate slowed down compared with the same period last year, when Chinese toy exports increased by 22% to 2 billion 200 million dollars.

In 2010, the total value of toys exported to China was US $10 billion 100 million.

Toy Industry Association Inc predicts that global toy sales will reach US $75 billion this year.

According to the data released by the association on the website, toy retail sales in the United States hit $21 billion 900 million last year, up 1.8% from $21 billion 500 million in 2009.

Tao Dong, chief Asia analyst at CS in Hongkong, said the China Import and Export Fair