Hasbro has been reinventing itself as a company these past 10 years. Under Brian Goldner, the goal was to become a media empire through licence holding, more like Disney. However, the media plans switched, with their movie investments not working out and leading them to sell off their production studio. They are now focusing on becoming a «
digital play » focused company under their new CEO, Chris Cocks. These changes in goals are because they feel there is less money to be made in physical toys than before. While that is probably true, there are still a few toylines that are seeing growth and Transformers has been mentioned as one of the rare ones in their recent earnings call for Q3.
While revenue for the company was down 15%, Transformers sales had a 5% increase. Of course its a far cry from the 87% they stated last year, thanks to the Rise of the Beasts toys, but it’s still growth in an overall market that is either stagnant or at loss. The other brands seeing growth are Furby, MLP and Play D’Oh, along with Beyblade which scored the highest growth (71%). We must remember though that unlike Transformers, Hasbro does not own Beyblade.
Nerf suffered losses along with their Star Wars line, which has been a gripe of Hasbro’s for years now, since they also have the license as a sunk cost.
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