Toycos spin new strategies to turn figural fortunes around

Once considered the crown jewel of the toy business, the mighty action figure category has fallen on hard times of late. Just three years ago, it was riding high on the strength of hit anime TV show Pokémon and a theatrical revisit of the original Star Wars trilogy. In 2000, though, the bottom caved in. Sales plummeted 26% (the second largest slide of any toy category for the year), and in 2001, the situation fared little better. According to market research firm The NPD Group, action figure sales rose a mere 6% for the first 11 months of 2001. And though the Harry-Monsters-Rings troika of tent-pole pics helped to nudge the category's sales northward in the last quarter, the industry still isn't exactly bursting with confidence that the category will return to the heady days of 24% annual growth it enjoyed in 1999.