Authentic Brands Group, owner of more than 50 brands, netted $21.4 billion in retail sales based on their licenses in 2022, according to the Global Licensors 2023 Report from License Global released Thursday.
Authentic, whose holdings include fashion, athletic and entertainment brands, ranks third in the report’s list of the top 20 global licensors, behind the Walt Disney Company and publishing giant Dotdash Meredith. The report collects data from intellectual property owners across global licensing businesses by providing retail sales of their products from 2022.
The report attributes some of Authentic’s growth to the completion of its Reebok deal in March 2022 and the completed acquisition of Ted Baker in October. More recently, Authentic acquired the intellectual property of Hunter Boots in June, the Vince brand in April and Rockport earlier this week.
The total IP tracked in the report amounts to $273.4 billion, with 82 brands participating. License Global is owned by Informa, which also owns Fashion Dive parent company Industry Dive.
Fashion ranks third in the top categories for retail sales based on licenses, with a total of $42.1 billion in total revenue of licensed consumer products sold at retail for the top five brands by category. The two top categories in licensing are entertainment, which ranks first at $111 billion, and toys and games, which takes second place at $35 billion.
Among fashion licensors, Kathy Ireland Worldwide grew $1.1 billion to a total estimated $4.2 billion in 2022. Bluestar Alliance, which owns brands such as Bebe, Scotch & Soda and Hurley, also grew by $1 billion to $7.5 billion in 2022. The fashion category in the report increased the amount of licensed goods it sold, with the top five fashion brands in the report reaching a total of $42 billion in revenue, per the report.
Other top fashion licensees include WHP Global, which grew its sales by $2.5 billion, and which owns Express, Bonobos and Anne Klein.
The report also measured sales growth between 2019 and 2022, and identified five leaders, three of which had fashion holdings. WHP grew 72% in that time period, Bluestar Alliance grew 29%, and Authentic grew 23%.
Mattel was the company that saw the largest growth between 2019 and 2022, with a 93% growth in sales. Report authors attributed this to its “powerhouse property” Barbie, which became a live-action movie this year and helped launch the Barbiecore trend.
