Despite its many well-known IP-driven titles, export sales for French animation saw a nearly double-digit decline last year.

Regional film promotion org Unifrance published its annual report today, including the latest figures on the country’s content exports in 2024. Overall, sales across all genres grew 3% year-over-year to reach US$244 million (EUR€209.6 million). However, this impressive uptick was primarily thanks to the French fiction/drama genre thriving internationally.

Despite being the second-most-exported genre behind fiction, animation sales came in at US$53.7 million (EUR€46.1 million), falling 9.9% from 2023. 

The genre has seen a steady decline every year so far this decade, a notable drop from 2020, when sales stood at roughly US$87 million. French animation did enjoy a strong recovery in presales last year, doubling to US$46.3 million (€39.8 million).

Even though established kids TV brands like Miraculous (Mediawan), Grizzy and the Lemmings (pictured, HARI) and Molang (Millimages) continue to perform well in global sales, the study noted that risk-averse buyers are reluctant to spend on new animation content or anything beyond the major, reliable IPs. In the North American market, for instance, French animation’s sales slipped 36.8% from the previous year to US$3.1 million (EUR€2.7 million)—the lowest they have been since 2008.

The full study is available on the CNC website.