The Spanish division of the German company Playmobil, based in the Alicante town of Onil, had a turnover of 25% less in its last financial year of 2022/2023. It fell from 54.5 million euro in the previous year to 40.7 million. The main reason for this decline, according to the company, was a “considerable downturn” in the domestic market with a decrease in sales of 33.2%. “The company and the toy sector have had to deal with a considerable increase in costs that have been partially passed on to the customer,” they explain.
In 2024, the company announced that it would maintain the logistics distribution for Spain and Portugal and the marketing and sales departments in Onil, after the closure of the productive activity. Production ceased in September 2023, although activity in the rest of the departments continued, although in April of this year a redundancy plan was carried out for 13 employees, which was added to the same in May 2023, in which 26 people left.
The production of the Spanish division ceased in September of last year and the company’s facilities in Onil were left only with the logistics distribution for Spain and Portugal and the marketing and sales areas. In 2024, the Playmobil company intends to continue with these departments in Onil, which currently employ 20 workers.
Since 2022, the toy sector in the country has increased by 0.4% in value and units sold, although it fell by 1.2% compared to the previous year. Overall, the toy sector was 1.1% below pre-pandemic figures. The average price increase was 5.4%.
In addition, in 2023 they predicted a greater economic boom that would boost sales growth, but they expected that “the purchase of toys will have a low priority for consumers.” In addition, they pointed to a low birth rate in Spain that affects the purchase of toys. Already in 2023, according to their report, they were concerned about “the fact that Playmobil Ibérica is also dedicated to production” because “it represents a diversification of risk that adds positive aspects to the forecasts, but sales are declining in all of the group’s markets.”
In addition, wholesalers and retailers continued to experience financial and sales problems in 2023. In fact, according to the financial report, “many customers were left with a lot of stock that they could not sell during the Christmas campaign, which in some cases meant that they were unable to place new orders.”
