Through the financial report, see which regions/products of the two toy giants sell better?

introduction

Recently, Mattel and Hasbro have announced their financial results for the first quarter of this year. The two companies basically continued the trend of last year: Mattel's net sales stopped falling, but the net loss of $28 million narrowed, and Hasbro was still in the throes of adjustment, with a significant year-on-year decrease in net income, but due to the effective streamlining of the business, it made a profit of $58 million, in line with the company's expectations.

Sales performance failed to achieve positive growth

As a common practice, let's first look at the performance data of the two companies in the first quarter of 2024:

Unit: US$ billion

Neither company achieved positive sales growth.

▌The difference is that Mattel's sales performance is basically the same as the same period last year, but the profit is negative, but the loss has decreased compared with last year, and the gross profit margin has increased slightly. It may have something to do with Mattel's spending money on share buybacks.

▌On the other hand, Hasbro's sales performance continued to decline, and the decline was as high as 20%. It is understood that this is related to the business streamlining carried out by Hasbro in recent years, as the company cleared some product lines (greatly reduced inventory) and authorized the R&D, production and sales of some brands, the decline in sales performance is inevitable. Coupled with inventory and cost control in place, Hasbro achieved a profit of 58 million yuan in the first quarter of this year. Among them, the gross profit margin of the toy segment increased by 5 percentage points, indicating that the underlying profitability has improved.

It should be mentioned here that since the beginning of this year, Hasbro has launched several important brand licensing partnerships. First of all, it was handed over to the LITTLEST PET SHOP, which was operated and distributed by Basic Fun!, and the related products began to be officially launched in the first quarter of this year, and the market response was good. Recently, it also announced a blockbuster partnership to license some of Playdor's product lines to Horizon Group and POWER RANGERS to Playmates Toys (click for review).

小小宠物店（LITTLEST PET SHOP）

Europe's recovery is sluggish

Let's take a look at the net sales data by region:

Unit: US$ billion

* Mattel's European data includes the Middle East and Africa

Looking at the regional data of the two companies, toy sales in North America showed signs of recovery, with Mattel's North American sales increasing by 2%, while Hasbro's North American sales fell the least.

Of all regions, Europe is at the bottom of the list. Mattel's European segment also includes the Middle East and Africa region, which the company reported was mainly due to the impact of lower retail inventories and the depreciation of the Turkish lira. Mattel's good growth in the Asia-Pacific region is not due to the strength of the East Asian market, but to the growth of Pacific countries such as Australia and New Zealand.

Toy cars/handicrafts are on sale

Next, the category data that you may be more concerned about:

Mattel's global book income statement for the toys category

Unit: US$ billion

▌Mattel's performance is more eye-catching in the toy car category represented by Hot Wheels, with a year-on-year increase of 5%. Among them, the Hot Wheels brand increased by 4% year-on-year. This category has been growing rapidly for several consecutive years, and its book revenue has surpassed that of dolls, becoming Mattel's largest toy category.

In Mattel's doll category, the sales of Barbie, the representative brand, were tepid compared with the same period last year, and the sales of dolls such as Trolls, Elf High School, and American Girl increased, but it was Mattel that spent a lot of effort to snatch back the Disney princess and Frozen series dolls from Hasbro that dragged down the performance.

In the infant preschool sector, the representative brand Fisher-Price fell slightly by 1%, and is the world's No. 1 brand in the field of infant and preschool children, and has recently launched a wooden product line, with good development momentum. There is also a preschool entertainment section in the section, including self-operated IP toys such as Thomas and Dinosaur Barney. Trailing behind are the lesser-known baby and children's product line Baby Gear and the stroller line Power Wheels.

美泰童车线Power Wheels产品

Hasbro's core category share change table

Unit: pts

▌On Hasbro's side, the toy gun category with the highest sales proportion has weakened the pull effect on the sales of Heat soft bullet guns due to the lack of related entertainment content launched in the early stage, resulting in a decline in sales. The arts and crafts represented by Pellerdo performed well and accounted for an increase in proportion.

But Hasbro has not relaxed in terms of new products. The biggest move is the launch of the X series by Beyblade, which has become a product sales highlight driven by new animated films. It can be seen that the product relies on IP content.

In addition, the refurbished Phoebe Furblets, a refurbished classic product, has a good sales momentum at the beginning of the year, prompting Hasbro to launch the Phoebe Galaxy in the follow-up of this year.

孩之宝新品菲比Galaxy

Regarding the outlook for this year, both believe that the overall performance is still on a downward trend, but the decline is less than last year, and it is estimated that it will start to pick up in 2025.

▍Source: Chinese and Foreign Toy Network (ctoy-gdta) Text/Editor: Jane/Salas