On the heels of Monday’s third-quarter earnings conference call, Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner touted his company’s commitment and superb execution when it comes to creating a memorable customer experience.
“As evidenced by our gains and market share and consumer takeaway this year, our teams are successfully creating the world’s best play experiences for consumers around the world, despite the challenging currency environment,” Goldner said, according to Seeking Alpha. “Consumer demand for our brands has remained very strong throughout 2015, with many emerging and developed markets, including the U.S., U.K., and Germany posting double-digit point-of-sale gains this quarter.”
Goldner noted strong performances from NERF and PLAY-DOH.
“MY LITTLE PONY demand remained strong around the world, with positive point-of-sale trends for MY LITTLE PONY Friendship is Magic! products and a new PLAYSKOOL FRIENDS line for preschoolers,” he explained. “The Equestria Girls: Friendship Games entertainment premiered last month on Discovery Family with good ratings that beat last year's Rainbow Rocks special in several key demographics. MAGIC ORIGINS was released in the quarter and was the biggest summer set release in MAGIC: THE GATHERING’s history. In addition in September, the global prerelease for the Battle of Zendikar set previewed at thousands of core Hobby Stores around the globe and was the best attended pre-release in MAGIC’s 22-year history.”
The franchise is as vibrant as ever, spanning demographics and bringing in new consumers, Goldner said.
“Star Wars has the potential to become increasingly global, much as Marvel has become as part of the Walt Disney Company,” he added. “Retailers and consumers have been very supportive of Hasbro Star Wars: The Force Awakens line and consumer takeaway is off to a strong start. Hasbro’s Black Series action figures and multiple lightsabers are on the top of consumers buying lists.”
Going forward, Hasbro will focus on building global gaming brands.
“We have a robust games program for the holiday, including a number of new initiatives,” Goldner explained. “MONOPOLY Here & Now features all new properties voted on by fans this spring and Internet sensation Pie Face is launching globally and off to a strong start in all major markets. We also have a number of entertainment lead games, including games based on Minions, Marvel's Avengers, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Disney's Frozen. Games category revenues absent foreign exchange were essentially flat in the quarter and increased 3% year-to-date. Consumer demand has been strong and point-of-sale trends are up double digits in several markets.”
Goldner said that the trends he is seeing indicated that the toy industry year-to-date is up high-single digits.
“We see that as boding well as we get into the holiday season,” he said. “What we really seeing from a retailer standpoint is that space at retail is increasing, our space is increasing, and they are very focused on the major brand initiatives that we have both franchise brands and partner brands for the holiday season. I feel like the consumer is finding our products and our brands, and that that there’s a lot of currency effects that are happening at this time, and obviously, different macroeconomic issues in some of the emerging markets, but if you strip out what’s going on there and take out effects, we are growing double digits in the emerging markets both in the quarter and year-to-date.”