The Character Group plc is the largest independent toy company based in the United Kingdom. We design, manufacture and distribute a wide range of toys, games and playthings. Many of our products feature or are based on popular film, television, comic and digital characters, reproduced under licence from the brand owners. The principal markets for our products are our home territories of the UK and Scandinavia but our penetration into other international territories is growing, particularly in the USA and other parts of the EU. We also partner on an exclusive basis with other overseas-based toy producers, either to market and distribute their products in the UK or to collaborate to jointly-develop and distribute toy products and ranges worldwide.
Our diverse product ranges focus on key areas within the toy sector; these include Pre-school (where we consider ourselves as market leader), Boys, Girls and Activity and Crafts Our Group strategy is to expand and refresh our diverse and existing, successful core brands (where we continually look to add new and relevant products), to develop innovative products (including environmentally-friendly and sustainable products) for newly emerging or established brands, both in-house and third party, and to further our sales penetration into territories outside our domestic markets in the UK and Scandinavia.
The Group owns and operates from three freehold properties in the UK. Our head office is based in New Malden, Surrey and our two distribution warehouses are located near Oldham, Greater Manchester. Our Far East operations are carried out from leased offices in Hong Kong and Shenzen, China and our Scandinavian operations are managed from leased offices in Copenhagen. The Group’s customer list includes the major UK and Scandinavian toy retailers, independent toy stores and a wide selection of distributors in many key overseas territories and the brands we represent are amongst the most recognisable to children and parents alike. We have a diverse and exciting product range which we believe offers something to all our target consumers.
Our top performing brands in 2020 and into 2021 include: Goo Jit Zu (our no 1 international selling brand), Peppa Pig, Pokémon, Little Live Pets, Shimmer ‘n Sparkle, Stretch Armstrong, Fireman Sam and Scooby Doo.
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