Licensing International’s 2025 Global Study Shows Licensing Industry Reached $369.6 Billion
Licensing International, the trade association for the $369.6+ billion global brand licensing industry, has announced an executive summary of its 2025 Global Licensing Industry Study. The study shows the continued worldwide sales growth of licensed products and services across categories including corporate, sports, entertainment, celebrities, fashion, and more.
This year’s Global Licensing Industry Study will be published later this summer and was conducted by third-party research firm Brandar Consulting, LLC.
“The global brand licensing industry continues to show remarkable resilience and growth. In 2024, consumers demonstrated unwavering loyalty to the brands, characters, and properties they love—despite ongoing economic uncertainty,” said Maura Regan, President of Licensing International. “Once again, the brand licensing industry outperformed the broader global retail market, reinforcing the fact that trusted brands drive more consumer engagement and inform purchasing decisions.”
The 2025 Global Study results are derived from multiple sources of market information as well as survey-reported data from 56 countries and all seven major geographic regions. In all, the study’s analysis includes specific licensing data from 935 companies spanning the globe.
Key takeaways from the 2025 Global Licensing Industry Study include:
- The Entertainment/Characters segment grew 1.5% to reach $149.8 billion in revenue.
- Growth was weaker in 2024 compared to previous years, due in part to the writers’ and actors’ strikes, which stalled production and pushed a number of titles to later dates on the calendar. There was a significant boost towards the end of the year, however, thanks to Universal’s Wicked, Disney’s Moana 2, and Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
- Revenue was split between Film & TV (43%) and Anime, Gaming, and Social Media (33%).
- The majority of revenue in this category came from classic & franchise properties (77%), while 20% stemmed from new properties.
- Top performing property categories in terms of growth rates in 2024 included Non-Profit (+16.8%), Music (+11.6%), Celebrity (+8.8%), Fashion (+8.1%), Corporate (+6.1%), and Sports (+3.6%).
- Several regions reported above market average growth rates in 2024, including South Asia/PAC (+6.8%), ME/Africa (+6%), Eastern Europe (+5.9%), and LATAM (+4.4%).
Further results from Licensing International’s 2025 Global Licensing Industry Study will be published in the complete report, including regional and country-by-country breakdowns for major markets. The full Global Study will be made available for free to Licensing International members (and publicly for purchase) later this summer.
