The China Toy Industry — Measured, Not Estimated

Market size. We have not measured it. Figures in circulation come from research firms and differ widely; repeating one would be borrowing authority we did not earn.

Growth rates and forecasts. Same reason.

How many factories exist in China. We know how many we buy from — 5,233 names across the catalogue. That is a floor, not a total.

Everything below this line is counted in our own database.

385,341 items from 5,233 factories across 38 categories.

Price. Median ¥9.30 a piece. 52% of items under ¥10, 92% under ¥50. Category medians from ¥1.35 to ¥49.00.

Packing. Median carton 84 pieces. The six most common carton sizes are 24, 36, 48, 72, 96 and 120 — which is why «minimum order» in this trade is a box, not a number somebody invented.

Certificates. 44,336 items with at least one test document on file from the factory, 11.5% of the catalogue.

Chenghai, in Shantou. Plastic toys: cars, blasters, figures, construction sets, dolls. Where the moulds live and where private-label production actually happens.

Guangzhou. Electronics, radio-controlled, ride-ons — anything with a battery or a circuit board. Different bill of materials, different minimums.

Yiwu. Small goods at enormous breadth: party items, keychains, novelties, stationery, decorations.

One more figure worth having in mind, and it is not ours: according to reporting by the Hong Kong outlet HK01 in January 2024, Chenghai accounts for about 33% of the world’s toy production capacity, with more than six million toys leaving the district every day, more than 50,000 toy businesses registered there and over 125,000 people employed in the trade. We cannot verify those numbers ourselves — we cite them with their source and date rather than as our own measurement — but they put the scale of a single district into perspective.

The clustering itself is the industry’s real asset. Mould makers, resin suppliers, printers, plating shops, testing laboratories and consolidators sit within a short drive, so a tool can be modified and back on the machine in days. Our wholesale markets page covers what each cluster is for.

Golden Week, 1–7 October. A full week of closed factories in the middle of the autumn run-up.

Chinese New Year, 6 February 2027. About six weeks of disrupted output around it.

Everything in the trade is planned around these two dates, and every buyer who has been caught by one plans around them afterwards. Production is 15–30 days, up to 45 in peak; consolidation and acceptance inspection 3–5; then freight, with ranges published for 62 destinations. The production calendar has the year.

44,336 items of 385,341 carry a test certificate on file from the factory. On the other 337,461 the field is empty, and we leave it empty rather than fill it with a borrowed report.

By standard: EN71 36,137 · REACH 33,088 · ASTM F963 24,034 · CPSIA 25,955 · CPC 20,465 · CE 20,175 · UKCA 7,907.

A buyer discovers an empty field eventually. Discovering it after payment costs trust in everything else on the page, so we publish the share instead. The reasoning is set out on our toy safety page.

The catalogue. 385,341 items from 5,233 factories, with the price published per piece and per carton, the carton quantity stated and the factory named on every card. 44,336 items carry at least one test certificate on file from the factory; on the rest the field is shown empty.

The production side. Our manufacturing partner is Yifeng Group (艺丰集团) in Chenghai, Shantou — the toy district officially designated «China Toys and Gifts City». The group has worked in Chenghai since 1992. Its first plant, Shifeng Culture Development Co., Ltd, dates from 1992 and runs more than 35,000 m² of production area with an annual output of USD 60 M; a second site, Huabo Smart Living Technology Co., Ltd, was established in 2018. The group owns its own brands, among them FEIFEITU and BABY SIX.

A laboratory in the same ecosystem. AJT Testing Services Limited, founded in 2007, is a third-party testing laboratory historically linked with the group’s founding family and working in the same Chenghai ecosystem — and the first private laboratory in eastern Guangdong to receive the Chinese national CCC accreditation for toy testing. That is why testing on a specific model can be arranged close to the factory.

The showroom. Yifeng Group (艺丰集团) keeps a permanent 15,000 m² showroom in Shantou with more than 500,000 toy samples on display — goods can be inspected in person before they go into a batch. The full company profile, including audits and accreditations, is on our factory partner page.

Where we sit. Offices in Yiwu and Shantou, a consolidation warehouse in Guangzhou, acceptance inspection by our partner Yifeng at its warehouse in Chenghai with photo and video before cartons are taped, and published transit ranges for 62 destinations.

The catalogue is open without registration. Pick models, we buy from the factories, consolidate into one shipment, inspect the batch in China before it travels, and ship to 72 destinations. Minimum order total 2,000 CNY (≈ $313).