Hello and welcome to another TFW2005 coverage of Hasbro’s Earnings Conference Calls. This time we are covering Q3 2016.
Hasbro has performed well on segments where Transformers brand exist. During the Q&A Session, Brian Goldner stated that Transformers: Combiner Wars did well.
“Transformers Business in the quarter was up” stated Brian Goldner, CEO of Hasbro. “We are really seeing how the addition of Fan Oriented Content that started this season on Machinima combined with our Core Boys Entertainment combined with our Pre-School Boys Entertainment is really driving that brand and taking it to the next level. It’s set up really well for 2017 when we go into the first year of three anticipated movies over the next three years.” continued Mr. Goldner.
You can read more and take a look at the slides, after the jump.
Brian Goldner stated the following:
“Hasbro Franchise Brands increased 2%. This growth was led by Magic: The Gathering, Nerf, Transformers and Play-Doh.”
“Nerf grew for the 15th consecutive quarter while Play-Doh extended its growth streak to 20 straight quarters. In addition, Transformers and Magic: The Gathering revenues increased. Transformers: Robots In Disguise animation as well as streaming content from Machinima is supporting product lines which have strong initial consumer reaction. Importantly, Transformers has good momentum heading into 2017, which marks the first of three years with planned major theatrical entertainment.”
“Backflip [Studios] has also unveiled several new mobile games this year based on Hasbro brands, including Transformers: Earth Wars and just last week, My Little Pony Puzzle Party.”
“In the U.S. and Canada segment, revenues increased 16%. Revenue growth in the Games and Girls categories more than offset declines in the Boys and Preschool categories. Hasbro Franchise Brand revenues grew 2%, with growth in Magic: The Gathering, Nerf and Transformers. Partner Brand revenues increased 13% in the segment, behind contributions from Hasbro’s line of Disney Princess and Disney’s Frozen, Dreamworks’ Trolls and to a lesser extent Yo-Kai Watch. Additional Hasbro brands, including Baby Alive, Easy Bake, Pie Face and Furby, also contributed to the year-over-year growth for the segment.”
“Within the International segment, the Boys, Girls and Preschool categories grew, while the Games category was flat. Franchise Brand revenues increased 4%, with growth in Magic: The Gathering, Play-Doh, Nerf and Transformers. Partner Brand revenues increased 30%, behind Hasbro’s shipments of Disney Princess and Disney’s Frozen, Yo-Kai Watch and Dreamworks’ Trolls Hasbro brands Baby Alive and Pie Face also contributed to the segment’s strong performance.”
NotRamjet97
Oh movie toys how I've missed you. It won't be long now…
Autovolt 127
John Warden said he is trying to make sure that the Prime Wars Trilogy stuff won't be affected by the movie lines.
The Kup
3 years of movies means 3 times the shelfwarming.
This is gonna be great.
Steevy Maximus
Hasbro did not pay retailers like Walmart to discount prior year product (in fact, I'm still seeing TFA branded items like the Chewbacca mask and Titans). Once retailers pay for the product, Hasbro's gotten paid. When stuff doesn't sell, that impacts what retailers order later on. For example, I'm sure the reason we didn't get a series of Micro Machines mid-sized play sets (the $20-25 ones) and only one large set was due to lackluster performance of sets last year.
Also, Star Wars items are routinely more expensive than similar items due to the cost associated with the license. Disney still wants their cut from those toys, so Hasbro marks them up to compensate. Considering how much was sold through last year, I highly doubt anyone is getting fired over it.
Max Tower
It is pretty irritating their – aversion to Movie Decepticons in the toylines – They could do with playing catch up with things like the Garbage Truck in Voyager size or a Legion Frenzy or Brains.
I don't mind if the Legion Class is used for the Movie line / likewise the One-Step RID-15/16/17 will have mined that vain pretty dry by then. and as I mentioned before the previous Movies before AOE never got one-steps as they'd not invented them then – and with it being a anniversary year they have a terrific excuse to stick a "10 Years of Transformers Movies" badge on the packet and make whatever they like in those selected sizes. Though I think they cover most of the areas with regard to Movie Legions there is still some worth a do over in that size or ones that didn't get a Hasbro solo release like Shockwave.
I think John Warden would be pretty unhappy if that was the case he's very focused on "The Prime Wars Trilogy" so much that people have to keep reminding him the over brand segments exist.
I do hope that Hasbro isn't banking to much importance on their Combiner Wars Web Series – as despite their hopes it does seem like all they did is make a more expensive 'Cybermissions' style offering.
I would be kinda curious to see how various ages react to it though like the target demographics, the over 40 G1 fans or the younger fans who came on with Armada or even Rescuebots loving little kids.
I don't think I am being to contentious is I say Rescue Bots is a better marketing tool than Combiner Wars was in terms of an animated offering to sell toys – I don't mind if they have another go perhaps in 2017 or 2018 with a conclusion to the story segment ideas… but if they don't I wouldn't be to surprised if many people don't even notice such a lack for Prime Wars 2.0 or 3.0 marketing.
I'm not sure I understand Hasbro correctly they have been suggesting they might make the last few eps of RID in a short season and then 1 or even 2 more longer episodes to sell on iTunes or DVD etc..
But I suspect what they mean is that The combination themed segment is going to be sold as if it's a single Movie like story – and they they might or might not make another stand alone feature length offering later – I guess we might have an idea when the show ends if it is all wrapped up or not – the chances of a "Predacons Rising" like mini-event toyline for that release *if it ever happens*.
I had the same thought – On the U-wing I might get one of them & the new Tie when they reduce them to like £15.00 in a Supermarket sale. I can't see me buying any 5 POA figures in a hurry though – they have nice sculpts but I'm just a lot less engaged with Star Wars lately – I'm on a down swing with that and an upswing with 3rd party & KO's it seems. Wei Jiang is 'Bey' (as the kids say these days so I've been led to believe by Twitter).
I look forward to having a real Star Wars Tresure hunt at Yard sales, Sale Trails and Carboot sale over the next few years, I've already been picking up the old titanium mini-vehicle at such places – which is always nice to see. I wouldn't say not to some magazine Vehicle collection models too. even the 5poa stuff is a nice find when it's like 25 pence a figure
There are little niggles in the Titans Returns line that should exist – I think they never anticipated that kids would want to mix and match the Titanmasters across the whole line – so it's a real annoyance when you find some can't stand on some pegs or sit in the seats or stand in the provided spots on the vehicles as they didn't make the parts all a uniform tolerance across the whole line.
Also what is with some Titanmaster being pinned at the hip and some having clip on legs ?
ar78
Ooohhh, use excess cash to buy back stock to pay off the C-Suite so they can buy expensive cars and extra vacation homes on the Connecticut coastline instead of lowering the prices of crappy toys like the new Rogue One line.
Obviously the pricing scheme isn\'t working out very well when box sets like the G2 combiners end up on Amazon and Hasbro Toy shop for $30. I did buy an X-wing and Tie Fighter from Episode VII for $8 each at Walmart. Making sure Hasbro had to pay Walmart for the discount match. Maybe I\'ll buy a U-Wing when it hits $10 in the spring. I don\'t know who made the decision that a $20 Nerf gun should be $50 because it makes noise and says Star Wars on the box, but I hope they get fired.
The Titans Return line looks great but the QC issues have been immense. I don\'t thin kone figure I bought fo rmy son has held up after a month of play. I shouldn\'t need to paint every joint on a figure so that it can stand up.Hasbro has been confirming that the only thing that matters is stock market based executive compensation and not the quality of what they produce. It is telling when knockoff product in China that sells for 1/4 of what a Hasbro product sells for is better quality. It seems the gray market cares more about what people think of their product that the official producers.
Novus
I really hope this three years of movie products doesn't effect the prime trilogy. I probably won't but any movie figures because they're pretty boring. I'm just hopeful we still get our regular generations stuff.
SG Roadbuster
growth in a non-movie year? i guess that's what happens when you release toys based on characters that people actually want.
Q3, so that's the late summer/early fall right? which is the first 2 waves of Titans Return, yes?
3 solid years of movie-based product……soooo basically what they did between rotf and dotm then. makes sense. devote 2017 to The Last Night, use the tail end of 2017 and beginning of 2018 for the Movieverse 10th anniversary, and late 2018 for the Bee solo flick. im ok with this if we're getting a "Generations" line like we did with AOE, and if they actually make some friggin Decepticons.
allthough 3 years of Movie stuff, does not bode well for RID.
Max Tower
We will be getting a awful lot of Movie news as well – especially if they decide to make that Animated Movie as well.
If I had to guess they might do one of two things – which is make an over arching "Movie Toy" brand that last 3 years or just tie in the line to the Generations product line but perhaps do what they did before and put Movie toys in white boxes and carry on with Prime Wars Trilogy toys in Black boxes.
I expect RID will be pretty much bumped off pretty soon after it's small 2017 line – I can't see them finding as space to release RID warrior class and One Steps past the few out before the Next Movie – I would guess the Movie is going to be hogging the 1-Step Brand size segment until 2019 or so.
if they were clever they'd get the Movie toys out in that 9-month window of Movie release-home-format Release – possibly xmas then each new year they can do something cool like make toys that are like the old Universe Brand that fill in gaps from any era that we never got – or even make Movie One-step from the earlier Movies to fill in the line too – I'd rather enjoy a One-Step Constructicons, or a 1970's Bee, Jetfire, or DOTM Prime, not to mention Mudflap & Skids, Wheeljack, Dino/Mirage, Starscream, Jet Megatron, Frenzy, Sideswipe, Arcee or Ratchet for example.
Amazingly there isn't a Concept camero Bee – with the old body in One step form either the ones they made are all AOE re-designed ones.
They have tentatively done this before when they made an IDW Prowl One Step and a ROTF One-Step for example. it can't hurt what with it also being the 2007 Movie's 10th Anniversary next year – not that I expect to get much more notice than Beast Wars' one did in the west.
I would anticipate retro Bee toys will be plentiful in the Bumblebee Movie offerings though.
Autovolt 127
Alright Good.
Max Tower
Did they say already that they are not going to kill off or co-opt the "Collector Lines" (I.e. Generations) so I expect most of the Movie product will be focused on Younger kids – the only slightly sad thing about that is I would like to see a quality leader class of the Dragon from the Movie be made and not some more primitive release aimed at just the 6 Year olds instead.
It's not that I mind the younger stuff – some of It I like very much but with the long history of Leaderclass movie toys it would be a shame to skip a cool dragon out of the line – so I hope they don't do that.
I don't anticipate they will fix their lack of Decepticons problem either. Movie are to some degree not something to look forward to as much as something that is a necessary evil needed to raise brand awareness.
Poor Ol' RID & Rescue Bots got forgotten or glossed over again I notice.
marvel b
did not know that either….
Neko-bot77
Imagine what the TF sales numbers would be if, i dunno…. they actually STOCKED product in STORES??? I mean, collectors will jump thru all kinds of hoops (and pay primo prices) to buy toys online, but paying 2-3x market price to get something online doesn't show up in Hasbro's profit. To them, they've sold 1 unit. To the scalper who sold the 1 unit, he's getting free rent/food/car payment/etc money for a small time investment (trolling stores). Yea…
Also, while collectors WILL go the extra mile (or 10) to find a new toy, the casual fan/ parent buying kid a toy/ etc, they won't be. "Oh, junior has the 2 TF toys Walmart has on the shelf… guess i'll buy him a LEGO or something." Yea… and thus Hasbro looses a sale that way.
BigRed
Someone please warn him as soon as possible that it wasn't the Machinima series that made Generations toy sell, it was just the toys being fun.
Lody666
They mention Magic
but nothing on their longest and oldest franchise GI Joe…
GizmoTron
I think they tried something like that years ago, but collectible card games not named Magic the Gathering rarely do well.
General Tekno
Hasbro's the one that has Trolls? Did not realize that.
I'm curious on the Machinima numbers too, considering Combiner Wars kinda sold itself as a toyline and the animation was a) almost too late b) not that great.
eagc7
we will find out when the Bumblebee solo movie toyline hits shelves, unless they plan on having a single toyline dedicated to just movieverse, with sublines for each specific movie.