The New Heritage Doll Company, based in Sacramento, California, was a privately held company with 450 employees and approximately $245 million in fiscal 2009 revenues. This represented approximately 8% of the $3.1 billion U.S. doll industry, which was projected to grow by 2% annually to $3.4 billion in retail sales by 2013. In turn, the doll industry represented a 7.4% share of the total $42 billion U.S. market for toys and games, which was dominated by global enterprises that enjoyed economies of scale in design, production, and distribution. Revenues were highly seasonal; the largest selling season in the United States coincided with the winter holiday period. The doll category included large, soft, and mini dolls, as well as doll clothes and other accessories. The phenomenon of age compressionthe tendency of younger children to prefer dolls that had traditionally been designed for older girlsreduced growth in the baby-doll sub-segment. Competition among doll producers was vigorous, as a small number of large producers targeted similar demographics and marketed their dolls through the same media. Lasting franchise value for a branded line of dolls was rare; the enormous success of Barbie dolls was an obvious exception. More recently and on a much smaller scale, New Heritage also had created a durable franchise for its line of heirloom dolls. However, the popularity of most doll lines waned after a few years.