Hasbro has set its sights on the girls’ market with an upcoming extension of its Nerf blaster brand.

Rolling out in the autumn and targeted at girls aged eight plus, the Nerf Rebelle range is decked out in white, pink and purple and includes a bow and crossbows as well as gun-style blasters like those in the main Nerf line-up.

Hasbro said Rebelle, which comes in the wake of last year’s teen movie The Hunger Games - in which lead character Katniss used a bow, was “inspired by current pop culture trends”.

The launch also follows strong UK supermarket sales, with data from toy market analyst NPD for the first half of 2012 showing grocery sales of Nerf up 38% year-on-year against an average 8% rise across all retailers. Over the same period, grocers increased their share of the Nerf market from 23% to 30%.

Hasbro is initially launching four products: the Rebelle Crossbow, which fires a stream of foam Nerf darts (rsp: £24.99) the Heartbreaker bow, which can fire a dart up to 75 feet (rsp: £19.99) the Sneak Attackers two-pack of mini blasters (rsp: £9.99) and the Pink Crush mini crossbow (rsp: £7.99).

The range includes refill packs of 12 foam darts decorated with ‘funky’ patterns (rsp: £3.99) and an accessories bag (rsp: £12.99).

Last January, Lego targeted girls with the Friends construction toys range featuring pink and purple bricks and accessories. The company said the range sold twice as many sets as expected in the first half of 2012.

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