Business Notes Toys

It had to happen. The collective infatuation with the puckered face of the Cabbage Patch Kid is finally faltering. Toy & Hobby World magazine recently reported that Coleco Industries' cuddly doll ($59.95) lost its position as the best-selling toy in the U.S., a title it had held for 16 months. The new No. 1 is Hasbro Bradley's plastic-and-metal toy robot series, the Transformers (average price: $12).

Competition in the toy business is far from childlike. The robot, introduced in April 1984, edged ahead of its rival partly because of a heavy ad campaign coupled with a syndicated television show, Transformers, that features some of the 50 different varieties of the toy. Hasbro Bradley estimates that it will sell 30 million robots this year, for total sales of $200 million.

Coleco disputes the trade magazine's findings, which were based on a telephone survey of 50 toy sellers. It claims still to be No. 1. But even if sales momentum has slowed, Coleco hopes to build an ever growing patch of ancillary products. Toy stores currently stock Coleco's Cabbage Patch doll pets ('Koosas) and infant dolls (Preemies). Coming soon: a doll-size fun fur, a pet pony and dolls dressed in foreign garb.