How childless households will impact milk formula and toys market sales

The milk formula market is seen to drop due to low number of children.

There is a mixed projection for the milk formula market and toys and games industry as there is a prevalence of single households globally, Euromonitor International, reported.

Maria Mascaraque, industry manager at Euromonitor International, said they project a fall in the number of households with children, which will decline the number of milk formula sales.

The industry amounted at US$54b in 2022 globally and may decline 0.8% CAGR from 2022 to 2027, mostly driven by APAC.

In the APAC region, the market may decline by 2% CAGR in the same projected period.

"This aligns with the fact that this particular region is undergoing the most substantial demographic transformation when compared to others,” she said.

Double-edged sword

Whilst milk formula is predicted to decline, the forecast for traditional toy and games is to remain flat due to lowering new born.

But adults purchasing toys for themselves, known as kidults, are contributing to the growth of Lego, dolls and accessories, and action figures and accessories.

Mobile games are also still being used by young and adults who are looking for ways to kills time.

Also mentioned are video games that are posting rapid growth over the next years as more are at home playing video games such as Minecraft, which allows them to communicate virtually with other players.

"Toy and video gaming companies are leveraging on the kidults trend with characters that many kidults grew up with are being released in the movies (Transformers, Dungeons and Dragons and Super Mario) and on streaming platforms like Disney+ (Marvel, Star Wars etc), driving demand for toys and games related to these franchises,” said Loo Wee Teck, Industry Manager- Consumer Electronics at Euromonitor International.

Euromonitor International research showed that there are 1.3 billion households globally without children in 2023.

By 2040, two out of three households will have no kids, with the top three countries that will be childless are in China, India, and the US.