How Important Is the Barbie Brand for Mattel?

Since the toy doll's first iteration in 1959, Barbie has become a universal blueprint for a popular and well-marketed toy that left an indelible mark in popular culture over the past decades. Apart from influencing other media, its manufacturer Mattel also created an enormous multimedia franchise encompassing books, comics, video games, TV shows and movies.

In 2023, the iconic doll got its first live-action adaptation helmed by director Greta Gerwig, starring Ryan Gosling as Barbie's partner Ken and Margot Robbie as the titular heroine. Even though the "impact from [Mattel's] direct movie participation, movie-related toy sales and consumer products" contributed a revenue boost of $150 million, according to Mattel's latest earnings call transcript, the company still had to contend with stagnating overall sales in 2023.

As our chart shows, the toy maker's gross sales volume sharply declined from 2013 onwards, dropping from a worldwide total of $7.1 billion to $5.1 billion in 2019. While the pandemic years helped the company bounce back, it is still some ways off from its former glory days. The Barbie brand, on the other hand, managed to hover around the one billion mark until 2018, when sales began taking off again. 2021 marked the highest gross sales value since 2013, with Barbie brand gross sales hitting $1.7 billion worldwide.

According to our Statista Market Insights, dolls and stuffed toys generated an estimated $55.7 billion worldwide in 2023. The biggest markets for this segment were China, India and the United States with revenues of $12.4 billion, $7.9 billion and $6 billion, respectively.