Disney Princess and Frozen dolls and Star Wars action figures have continued to boost sales for US toymaker Hasbro.
Revenues rose 10% to $879m (£663m), beating analysts’ expectations, in the three months to 26 June as sales of partner brands such as Disney rose 15%. Excluding the impact of changes in currency exchange rates, revenues were up 12%.
The strongest growth came from products aimed at girls – up 39% – such as dolls based on Elsa, the heroine of Frozen, and new Disney Princess toys deriving from the likes of Cinderella and Snow White. Hasbro took over the global rights to make these dolls from rival Mattel from 1 January 2016 under a licensing deal with Disney.
Chief executive Brian Goldner said the sales performance of the dolls had been better than expected. However, shares in Hasbro slumped 7.5% in New York on worries about the future for the boys market as the company prepares to start delivering toys linked to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in the run-up to Christmas.
Analysts believe Hasbro is unlikely to get the same boost to sales as that generated by the previous film in the franchise – The Force Awakens – one of the highest grossing movies of all time.
Sales of toys aimed at boys, the group’s biggest market, and accounting for 40% of the business, rose just 6% at constant currency rates compared with double-digit rises in the previous quarter. Without help from new film releases this year, Transformers toy sales slid by 20% and items related to dinosaur franchise Jurassic Park fell by more than that.
Goldner said Hasbro would stop selling Jurassic Park toys from the end of 2017 after failing to come up with a “mutually beneficial financial arrangement” to do so.
He said demand for Star Wars-related items remained “very strong”. But he admitted that total sales for the year were likely to be the same as last year, at $500m, as the toys would hit shelves in late September, almost a month later in the year than those linked to the previous Star Wars film in 2015.
Jefferies analyst Trevor Young said the slowdown in the boys category was “somewhat worrisome”.
On a positive note, Goldner said the company had not seen any negative impact on business in the UK since the country’s decision to leave the European Union despite the “near-term uncertainty” created by the referendum result.
Europe was the fastest-growing region in the quarter, with sales up 24%, excluding exchange rate fluctuations, which included a 25% rise in the UK. Goldner said Hasbro continued to enjoy “positive momentum” in the UK and Europe as a whole.
Another source of growth is mobile gaming. Fans spent 80% more on Hasbro’s branded mobile games in the first half of 2016 compared with the first half of last year. The company saw strong growth from its Yahtzee with Buddies social dice game and is now developing a mobile gaming and Apple TV version of Pie Face, a suspense game involving trying to avoid being slapped in the face with whipped cream or a wet sponge.
Hasbro is increasingly trying to create its own content and online games, spurring it to buy Irish animation firm Boulder Media, the company behind Disney Channel’s Wander Over Yonder, and the BBC’s rebooted Danger Mouse. Over time, the company is expected to take on animations of Hasbro’s own brands such as My Little Pony.
