Global licensing reached $389.8 billion in 2025. Behind the record lies a structural transformation in how characters, fandom and IP create value.
Slug: 389-billion-global-licensing-economy-kids-ip
Tags: Licensing, Kids Licensing, Intellectual Property, Character Licensing, Anime, Gaming, Publishing, Consumer Products, Market Intelligence
The global licensing business has reached a new milestone.
Worldwide retail sales of licensed merchandise and services reached $389.8 billion in 2025, according to Licensing
International’s 2026 Global Licensing Industry Study, an increase of 5.45% from $369.6 billion a year earlier. More significantly, licensing expanded faster than the broader global retail market, which grew nominally by 4.52%. The study draws on licensing data from 1,068 companies across 51 countries. But the headline number tells only part of the story. Behind the $389.8 billion figure is a profound transformation in how entertainment properties are created, distributed and monetised.
Characters are becoming brands. Books are becoming intellectual-property platforms. Games are becoming media ecosystems. Anime is becoming a global licensing engine. Social platforms are becoming both discovery
and retail channels. And the boundaries that once separated publishing, entertainment, gaming, toys and consumer products are rapidly disappearing. For the children’s media industry, this convergence is particularly important. Increasingly, the economic value of a successful children’s property does not come from one product. It comes from the ecosystem that can be built around the IP.
KMN Key Numbers
$389.8B — Global retail sales of licensed
merchandise and services in 2025.
+5.45% — Annual growth of the global licensing
industry.
$161.8B — Character & Entertainment
licensing.
41.5% — Share of the total licensing market
represented by Character & Entertainment.
+8% — Growth of Character & Entertainment
licensing.
$46.4B — Global licensed toy sales.
+14.1% — Growth of licensing in North Asia.
32% — Share of global licensed retail sales
generated online.
16% — Share of online licensed sales generated
through social-media platforms.
Source: Licensing International, 2026 Global Licensing Industry
Study.
Entertainment remains the centre of gravity
The largest property category in licensing remains Character
& Entertainment, generating $161.8 billion in retail sales
in 2025. That represents 41.5% of the entire global licensing market, and it grew by 8% in a single year.
For the kids industry, this matters because Character &
Entertainment licensing is where many of the traditional components of children’s media converge: characters, franchises, television, streaming, gaming and digital entertainment. But even within this enormous category, the balance of power is changing. The traditional assumption was straightforward: film or television → audience → merchandise. That model is no longer sufficient to explain the market.
According to Licensing International, anime, video games,
comics, social media and other properties now account for a combined 34% of Character & Entertainment licensing revenues. Feature films together with scripted and unscripted television represent 33%.
That statistic illustrates one of the biggest structural changes
taking place in global entertainment: the screen is no longer
the only place where a franchise begins.
IP can start almost anywhere
A globally scalable children’s property might now originate as a book, a manga, a webtoon, a videogame, a YouTube property, a social-media character, a comic or an animation. The question for companies is therefore changing. It is no longer simply, “Can we sell this content?” It is increasingly, “Can this property travel between formats, territories and consumer experiences?” A book generates revenue when somebody buys the book. An IP ecosystem can generate value every time the audience interacts with the property. The book may therefore become the first layer of a much larger architecture.
Publishing is becoming part of the licensing economy
Publishing properties themselves increased 5.9% in
2025, making publishing one of the stronger-performing
licensing property categories. For children’s publishers, this creates both an opportunity and a strategic challenge. Historically, international expansion in children’s publishing often meant selling translation rights. That business remains essential, but a new layer is increasingly being added. A publisher or IP owner may now ask: Could the property become animation? Could it work as a game? Could it become a toy line? Could it support apparel? Could it become an educational product? Could it work as a live experience? Could its characters build communities online? In other words, publishing rights and IP rights are becoming increasingly interconnected. The companies that understand that distinction early may capture substantially more value from successful properties.
The rise of anime, gaming and comics changes licensing
One of the most revealing developments is the increasing weight of media forms that were once considered secondary to mainstream film and television. Anime, videogames, comics and social media are now central components of Character & Entertainment licensing. This is especially relevant for younger audiences. Today’s children and teenagers do not necessarily distinguish between media categories in the way the industry traditionally has. A character may be discovered through a game, then watched on streaming, followed on social media, encountered in a comic and purchased as a collectible. The consumer experiences one IP. The industry often still sees five different businesses. That gap is one of the most important strategic issues facing children’s entertainment.
Asia is becoming impossible to ignore
North Asia was the world’s fastest-growing licensing region in 2025, expanding by 14.1%. Licensing International attributes that performance to growth in global box office, videogames and anime streaming, led particularly by Japan, South Korea and China. Latin America increased 7.6%, while South Asia/Pacific grew 5.3%. These figures reinforce a broader shift within the children’s entertainment industry. For decades, global entertainment expansion was often imagined as a predominantly West-to-East process. Today the flows are multidirectional.
Japanese anime travels globally. Korean webtoons generate audiovisual adaptations. Asian videogames create worldwide communities. Chinese platforms and publishers operate at enormous domestic scale while increasingly participating in international rights markets. The global map of children’s IP is becoming much more complex — and potentially much more interesting.
The $46.4 billion toy connection
Toys remain one of the clearest demonstrations of how entertainment can become physical commerce. Licensed toys generated $46.4 billion in retail sales during 2025. Another phenomenon is broadening the economics of this category: the kidult consumer. Licensing International reports that nearly 40% of European adult consumers purchased toys either for themselves or another adult during 2025.
This matters enormously for IP owners. The audience for a successful children’s franchise may no longer disappear when the original child grows up. Nostalgia can create a second commercial cycle. The strongest children’s franchises therefore do something extremely valuable: they grow with their audience.
Commerce is moving closer to content
Online retail represented 32% of global licensed retail sales in 2025. For the first time, Licensing International also measured the role of social commerce: 16% of global online
licensed sales were generated through social-media
platforms. The implications go beyond ecommerce. The traditional consumer journey might have looked like content → advertising → store → product. Increasingly it can become content → community → recommendation → purchase. Sometimes all of this happens within the same digital environment. Community itself becomes infrastructure.
The KMN Licensing Flywheel
The modern licensing economy is increasingly better understood as a flywheel rather than a linear chain:
STORY → AUDIENCE → COMMUNITY → PRODUCTS → EXPERIENCES → DATA → NEW CONTENT → LARGER AUDIENCE
A story creates an audience. The audience becomes a community. That community creates demand for products and experiences. Those interactions generate data, which informs new content and expands the audience again. The stronger the IP becomes, the faster that wheel can potentially turn.
This changes how children’s IP should be evaluated
For publishers, producers and investors, the traditional evaluation of children’s content may no longer be enough. KMN believes companies should increasingly evaluate properties across at least six dimensions:
Character strength — Are the characters immediately
identifiable?
World — Is there a universe capable of generating
additional stories?
Repeatability — Can the concept support multiple
episodes, books or experiences?
Visual identity — Can audiences recognise the
property instantly?
Format mobility — Can the idea move between
publishing, audiovisual, digital and physical products?
International portability — Can the fundamental
concept travel culturally?
None of these guarantees success. Together, however, they help
distinguish a piece of content from a potentially expandable
intellectual property.
The new competition is for attention — and longevity
The paradox of today’s entertainment economy is that producing content has become easier while building durable franchises may have become harder.
Children have access to an extraordinary volume of entertainment. Streaming competes with gaming. Gaming competes with social media. Books compete with short-form video. Traditional broadcasters compete with YouTube.
Every IP therefore fights for the same scarce resource:
attention. Licensing introduces a second dimension. It allows successful properties to exist beyond the moment when the audience is watching or reading them.
A character can appear in a bedroom, on a backpack, inside a game, at a theme park, on clothing, in a school product or as a collectible. Every new point of contact potentially reinforces the relationship between audience and IP. Licensing, at its best, is therefore not simply merchandise. It is audience extension.
Why this matters for smaller IP companies
The $389.8 billion figure might suggest an industry dominated
exclusively by giant entertainment groups. But the transformation of distribution creates opportunities for smaller companies as well. An independent publisher may own an unusual children’s character. A webtoon studio may discover a global fandom. A game developer may create a recognisable universe. An animation studio may control a property rather than simply provide production services. What matters increasingly is not only company size. It is the combination of ownership + audience + scalability. This is why IP ownership is becoming one of the most strategic questions across children’s media.
KMN Outlook 2027
The licensing economy is unlikely to become simpler. It will become more interconnected. Publishing companies will think more like IP companies. Animation studios will increasingly consider consumer products earlier in development. Gaming companies will continue moving into entertainment licensing. Anime and manga will play an increasingly international role. Retail and social commerce will move closer to content. Emerging properties will attempt to build communities before they become mass-market franchises. The strongest children’s media companies may therefore be those capable of thinking simultaneously about storytelling and business architecture. Because the fundamental economic unit of children’s entertainment is changing. It is no longer necessarily the book. It is no longer necessarily the television series. It is no longer necessarily the toy. Increasingly, it is the intellectual property connecting all of them. And a global licensing economy approaching $400 billion shows just how valuable those connections have become.
Primary source: Licensing International, 2026
Global Licensing Industry Study.
ARTICLE| GLOBAL MARKETS / ASIA
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