Toys and Sporting Goods: Strong in Sports Gear, Still Emerging in Toys

Updated: 5 Oct 2026

In October 2024 a range of wooden hockey sticks sold under the England Hockey brand, the name of the sport's governing body in England, was withdrawn from the market. The UK product safety regulator had found "excess concentrations of phthalates" and called it "a serious chemical risk". The sticks were made in India (OPSS product safety report, October 2024 (opens in a new tab)).

That case says two things at once, and this page is built around both. A national sports body chose an Indian maker for its own branded sticks, which tells you India's sports-goods craft is trusted at a serious level. And the failure wasn't the wood or the shape. It was a chemical in the finish, the part nobody thinks of as the product. We'll answer the questions buyers actually ask about this industry, in the order they usually ask them. The honest caveat comes first, as the first answer.

SourcingFrom Intelligence

In the Indian-made toys and sports goods recalled or blocked in the UK, US and EU since 2021, the failure is almost always the coating, plastic or paint, not the build. Phthalates in a toy cricket set, a hockey stick range and sticker sets. Lead paint on a croquet set and wooden stacking toys. N-nitrosatable substances in the plastic tyres and foam of toys. (Our analysis of EU Safety Gate, UK OPSS and US CPSC records, 2021 to 2026)
India's toy QCO doesn't cover goods made for export. The BIS mark on an Indian toy tells you it can be sold in India. It tells you nothing about your market. (Toys (Quality Control) Order, 2020)
Three published "India toy export" figures disagree by a factor of four. They measure different things. (PIB, GTRI and HS 95 trade data · Reported, conflicting)

What we don't know yet

Export figures from the Sports Goods Export Promotion Council. Its site gave us no content.
Official sources on Jalandhar's sports goods or Channapatna's toys.

1. Is India Actually Big in This?

Not in toys. In sports goods, it's a real niche.

The figures conflict, and we'd rather show you why than pick the flattering one. The government says toy exports reached about US$326 million in FY2024-25, up from US$96 million ten years earlier (PIB, Strengthening India's Toy Ecosystem (opens in a new tab)). The think tank GTRI reported toy exports of US$152 million for FY2023-24 (Business Standard, May 2024 (opens in a new tab)). And the whole of HS chapter 95, which adds games and sports equipment, came to about US$604 million in calendar 2025 by a trade-data aggregator (Trading Economics (opens in a new tab), Indicative). The gap is mostly scope: which HS lines count as "toys", and whether sports goods are in. India's official commodity list doesn't even give sports goods their own line. They sit inside engineering goods.

Whichever number you pick, India is a small toy exporter next to China. A research paper from India's own trade institute found that the toy quality rules didn't significantly raise exports (IIFT WTO Centre, Working Paper 92 (opens in a new tab), Reported). The broader context is on India's export industries.

2. So Where Is India Good?

Sport, where the craft is wood, leather and willow. Uttar Pradesh names Meerut's district product as sports goods, and it's the only sports location we can source officially. Cricket bats, balls, hockey sticks and protective gear are the reputation, and the England Hockey case shows the kind of buyer that reputation reaches. The town profile is on Meerut. Jalandhar in Punjab is equally famous for sports goods, but we found no official source for it, so we're not describing it here.

In toys, the strength is wood and handcraft rather than plastic and electronics. Varanasi's district products include wooden toys on the state's ODOP list, and the product page is Wooden toys. If you're after mass plastic or electronic toys, India is building that industry behind high import duties, but it isn't yet a deep export base, and we'd test it hard before committing a range.

3. Doesn't the Indian BIS Mark Cover Safety?

No, and this catches people out. Since the Toys (Quality Control) Order, 2020 took effect, toys made in or imported into India must carry the BIS Standard Mark against the IS 9873 series. But the order applies "except for export" (Toys (Quality Control) Order, 2020, as summarised by STC (opens in a new tab)). An Indian factory exporting to you doesn't need the mark, and even if it has one, the test was set by India's standard, not your market's. Treat it as a sign the factory knows what a test lab is, and nothing more.

4. Which Rules Will I Actually Face?

The rules depend on your market, not on India. In brief:

United States. Children's products need third-party testing at a CPSC-accepted lab and a Children's Product Certificate, which is filed electronically with CPSC from 8 July 2026 (CPSC (opens in a new tab)). The limits are 100 ppm total lead in accessible parts and 0.009% lead in paint (CPSC, total lead content (opens in a new tab)). Two of the Indian recalls we found were lead paint: a family croquet set in 2024, where the mallet coating also failed the phthalates ban, and a wooden stacking toy in 2022 (CPSC croquet recall (opens in a new tab), CPSC stacking toy recall (opens in a new tab)).

United Kingdom. Toys follow the Toys (Safety) Regulations 2011, with UKCA or CE marking and a GB responsible business. In 2023 a toy cricket set from India was "rejected at the border and destroyed" for phthalates (OPSS, August 2023 (opens in a new tab)). The wider UK rules are on India to the UK.

European Union. CE marking and a technical file under the Toy Safety Directive today. A new Toy Safety Regulation, (EU) 2025/2509, was published in December 2025 and applies from 1 August 2030 (SGS summary (opens in a new tab), Supported). French and Swedish authorities have repeatedly flagged Indian toys for N-nitrosatable substances in plastic and foam, and one stacking toy for lead migration of 64 mg/kg (our analysis of EU Safety Gate).

Australia and New Zealand. Both have mandatory standards for some children's products, such as toys for under-threes. Check your product against them with your importer or test lab, because the lists change.

5. What Should I Test First?

The pattern in the records is clear enough to plan around. The wood, willow and leather rarely fail. The finish does. So put your test money on:

Paint and coatings for lead, on every colour.
Plastic grips, stickers, PVC parts and foam for phthalates, and rubber or foam for N-nitrosamines if your market is the EU.
Small parts on anything a child under three might handle. A pétanque set's jack and a stacking toy's duck bill both failed here.

Ask your supplier who supplies the paint, varnish and grips. Many good sports-goods makers buy these in, which is normal, but the chemical risk lives with that supplier. Get the test done on production pieces, not the pretty samples. Destination test plans are on destination test plans.

6. Back to the Hockey Sticks

The England Hockey sticks show the opportunity and the trap in one product. Indian makers can build sports equipment good enough to carry a national federation's name. And a single untested coating can pull it off the shelf. If you're buying Indian sports goods, buy the craft with confidence and test the finish as if the whole order depends on it, because it does.

If you want someone to pull samples from the production line and send them to a lab you choose, SourcingSync (opens in a new tab) arranges that at origin.