In Nigeria, Barbie has some fierce - brown - competition: Taofick Okoya, a 43-year-old entrepreneur, has created Queens of Africa dolls and Naija Princess dolls that are outselling Mattel's classics.
Okoya says he sells 6000 to 9000 dolls a month and he has "about 10% to 15% of a small but fast-growing market".
Last year, American Girl Doll discontinued some of its non-white dolls - Ivy Ling, an Asian-American, and Cecile Ray, an African-American - to much controversy. In 2013, Mattel came under fire for its Mexican Barbie, which came with a passport and a chihuahua.
The Queens of Africa dolls are based on Nigeria's three largest groups - for example, Nneka is Igbo, Wuraola is Yoruba and Azeezah is Hausa - and each has traits that are meant to empower the girls who play with them.
On the company's website, there's even a photo of the three dolls holding a #BringBackOurGirls sign. (Okoya has also created books that pair with each of the dolls so those traits are doubly reinforced.)
Okoya, who has a daughter, says he came up with the idea in 2007.
"All the dolls in the house were white, and I thought, 'That's a problem,'" Okoya says in a video promoting his dolls. "Because when you load a child with all this, it becomes an acceptable form of . how you should look.
"I want to use my dolls to teach Nigerian culture, African culture."
He told ELLE magazine: ''The Queens of Africa definitely fill a void in the market. The first reaction we got from retailers was resistance. They said: 'Black dolls don't sell.'
"I embarked on an educational campaign on various media, telling people about the psychological impact dolls have on children, and dolls in the likeness of the African child can have on them. It took almost three years for the idea to be accepted."
Okoya said he's shipping more and more of his dolls abroad, including to the US.
Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package. 
