Hasbro held their 2021 Q3 Financial Call today, and as always, TFW2005 was present to cover the event.
The event took a somber tone due to the recent passing of Hasbro’s former CEO Mr. Brian Goldner.
To greet all of us, Mr. Richard Stoddart took the chair as the Interim CEO.
Some of the discussed topics (including Q&A):
- Transformers franchise revenue increased.
- Mitigation plans for global supply outages.
- More entertainment plans for Transformers.
- The naming of a new CEO for Hasbro.
You can read all the details for the above topics, after the jump.
The company stated that Transformers franchise revenue increased.
“Transformers [Franchise] revenue increased in the quarter. The final chapter of the War for Cybertron Trilogy launched July 29th on Netflix driving continued demand in our Generations Fan product. We also celebrated a new milestone for the Transformers Franchise, when Universal Studios Beijing opened Transformers: Metrobase, the first-ever Transformers-themed land. In partnership with Paramount, production on Transformers: Rise of the Beasts continues for theatrical release next summer.”
Regarding the global supply outage, Hasbro CFO Deborah Thomas stated that Hasbro is ensuring that there won’t be a shortage of toys for the holiday season. She stated that they have taken additional measures such as air-freight to circumnavigate the shipping concerns. Despite the additional cost due to air-freight, she confirmed that there won’t be another price increase within 2021 to minimize the hit on retailers and consumers.
Richard Stoddart stated that in addition to air-freight, the following list of mitigation plans are in place:
- Usage of additional ports in China and the United States
- Usage of additional ships.
- Increasing the cargo capacity than usual.
- Additional truck deliveries.
Entertainment One (eOne) CEO Darren Throop stated that eOne is working on entertainment content for 30 Hasbro properties.
Other than the Transformers feature film (Rise Of The Beasts), and the upcoming animated series (Netflix, Nickelodeon), eOne is working on more entertainment content for the Transformers brand.
Mr. Stoddart stated that Hasbro is in the process of nominating a permanent CEO for the global toy and entertainment giant.
“Before turning the call to Deb, I want to touch briefly on the plan for naming a permanent CEO. Our board is and always has been actively engaged in succession planning for the CEO and other senior executive roles. This work provides a strong foundation for the naming of a new long-term leader for Hasbro and is well underway. Until that time I am working closely with the outstanding group of talented individuals making up our senior management team.”
Sunbow Prime
How much they make is though. With enough product there isn't much reason to resell.
Cardion
Bumblebee Cyberverse is AWESOME!
That is all.
Rodimus_Prime
I don't know how/where Netflix get their ratings but if they have the numbers to back that, they can tell whatever story they like. For example if we use rotten tomatoes, it's getting decent overall rating. Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy: Siege
WolverineDragon
PS5 and Xbox Series X say hello!
Stygian360
This is a great point and I think is applicable in any media where the influence is something from toys/comic books and the property is very healthy. The MCU for instance takes the often storied and lush history and incorporates much of that into the movies, including costumes that (although heavily 'tuned up' for the big screen) evoke the root character and context perfectly. The Bay movies kind of went a different way with Transformers, but the lush history was still there even if the characters themselves were reskinned. The point being, as you said Magnus as long as companies and producers of media at least listen to the fans and pull from the history they run less risk of failure.
Ramberk Magnus
Exactly. Let’s also not pretend scalping is a Hasbro exclusive problem. Scalping is just old fashion “gig” work for some folks. Something they can do on the side to squeeze a little bit more money into their pocket.
Omegax80
Understandable, and I agree with most of this. However, this is not a problem Hasbro needs to step in to. Hasbro produces and distributes product, how it sells is out of their control.
Take Pokemon cards. It fell to the retailers to limit or cease the sale of product because of problems.
I'm not offering a solution because I don't have one, but to expect Hasbro to get involved at the retail level is a bit unrealistic.
Rodimus Prime
They're not going to tell their investors that.
ZapRowsdower
100% disagree.
Too many scalpers today clearing out product. Come November, eBay even sends out messages to toy sellers, listing which toys they should snatch up locally.
Hasbro is not doing enough to combat this. They are releasing more and more store exclusives, which exacerbates the problem.
Local shelves are barren, save for the one product with no re-sale value: BB Cyberverse.
jrod1019
How about restocking and bringing back Transformers that some of could not find or reissue some that were popular I don\'t like paying double for stuff on Ebay.
Dann86
Sounds like the franchise is going from strength to strength.
The Eone 30 properties thing has my attention as might finally get the Micronaughts, MASK, ROM and Visionaries stuff thats been batted about for a while.
User_120125
I wonder if Mr. Stephen Davis will be able to come back to Hasbro, and become the very next CEO of Hasbro.
Ramberk Magnus
If the Netflix shows got people to buy TFs, especially new buyers or severely lapsed buyers- great! Job completed!
The optimist in me says that Hasbro understands two very important things: 1. Listen to the fans. 2. Good stories matter.
They’re listening to fans as evident by many examples current and past. Just look at Legacy and it’s expansion outside of G1.
Beast Wars got revived and Beast Wars has a strong fandom because it was so well written. My hope is that the next TF Netflix animated series gets a bigger budget and more oversight on its writing.
Partnering with Netflix is a recipe for success. Let’s Go!
Stygian360
I think it's fair to say (at least to my eyes anyway as I peruse toy shelves multiple times a week) that Hasbro is not experiencing the same shortages as other industries. There seems to be plenty of product and although collectors snatch up entire waves of things the second they drop on shelves (good luck kiddos) when product is out there's enough of it. Good on them for making sure their supply chain issues are the least impactful that they can be given the current global environment.
Hooper_X
I\'d guess they got raw dogged on Ghostbusters, seeing as the toys have basically been done for a year or so now and have just been sitting around waiting on a street date.
The entire point of the Netflix cartoon was simply to exist and be publicized on Gizmodo and IO9 and other \"nerd content\" aggregator services to remind people that hey, you can still buy Transformers!
They aren\'t supposed to be good. They\'re just supposed to be there.
Rodimus_Prime
I'm just grateful that we are getting a lot of good to great toys from this trilogy. More series, more Transformers…all good for MOST fans.
Cykill 1
Remember everyone. It is just not the toys that will be going up. It is everything across the board…gas, utilities, food, etc. It would be great that it was only products but it is not. Better hope Hasbro to spread the waves out more or to continue to have more repacks of figures. I am glad that they are doing repacks, it helps me find figures I\'ve missed.
cloudballoon
Awful Netflix shows or not (I\'m indifferent to it), they\'re more exposure to the wide public for the franchise and does help the marketing effort for the toys. I still feel the last show Hasbro had put any narrative and creative heart & souls into was TF rime, new RID & Cyberverse are silly fun for the kids and their toys were therefore aimed for kids, which is fine by me as that makes my gifting decisions easy for the litlle ones. However Netflix shows (CW, TR, WFC) are ALL marketing campaigns and the poor result (from a TV critics POV) shows. I\'m not angry though, as I know their place as I adjusted expectations.
I\'m just glad the whole WFC toy lines has been incredible overall. Personally, there\'s still a handful of missing \"appeared on screen\" characters I want to get (can\'t afford the Titans, but oh well) for my G1 collection. I came back to collect TF after I was floored by the engineering of the movie\'s Leader class ROTF OP when a friend\'s kid asked me to help him transform the figure), so I missed a lot of the early CHUG figures, so I hope Hasbo will revisit those early CHUG characters but newly \"G1-ified\" as per the Legacy line PR in the next 3 years that haven\'t reappeared in WFC. I\'m not looking to complete any post G1 lines, so future price increases aren\'t too big an isssue for me as I will just pick up figures that are great in design, engineering and (to me) justify the price. Right now, the only size/price class that\'s not \"overpriced\" is the Voyager class for me here in Canada anyway… so feeling kind of ripped off is nothing new.
JT-bob
Star Wars is my other collecting jam, the main lines (3.75" and 6") are nearly always sold out on shelves over the last year, but Hasbro pumps out so much ancillary stuff like a new kiddie line every few years that's incompatible with all other lines, and sad "Baby Yoda's the hottest thing" junk that all sits at clearance, it really drags the brand down to the gutter.
Thanks for that info, that's really bad news. I'd assume SW and Disney Frozen 2 combined as I see a lot of the latter while digging through clearance crap.
BigRed
The conferece specifically stated that Marvel and Ghostbusters increased, so Star Wars might indeed be the culprit.