Hasbro reported sharply lower earnings for the fourth quarters with profits down 30%. For all of 2008 North American sales were up 5% led by (according to Hasbro’s press release) “Star Wars, trading card and board games, G.I. Joe, Transformers and Marvel” along with Playskool. But most of Hasbro’s categories ran into trouble in Q4 with the Boys category down 13%.
According to Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner, “Games and puzzles for the full year was down slightly while board games was up a few percent. In the fourth quarter games and puzzles were down a bit more significantly as were board games.” Led by Scrabble, board games were up 2% for the year, while the total games and puzzle category was flat for year—not such a bad outcome considering the economic slowdown in the fourth quarter and the rising dollar, which cut deeply into foreign profits during Q4.
Hasbro’s Q4 profits were hurt as it responded to the slumping economy by cutting prices on a number of items—
Goldner assessed the performance of Hasbro’s major Boy’s category brands in 2008 as follows: “Star Wars was up significantly for the year. The Marvel brands performed very well with Iron Man exceeding expectations. The Transformers brand was remarkably strong. It did not show the type of decline we typically see after a movie year. In fact it was the lowest percent decline in the year-after movie of any of our Boy’s entertainment properties we had launched in the last ten years.”
When asked during a conference call with analysts if Hasbro would re-up with Marvel, Goldner deftly sidestepped the question: “We are very pleased with the Marvel relationship. We have seen the development they are putting forth during our current term in the contract and we are very excited about properties coming in 2010 with Iron Man and Thor, so we still have a number of years there to work together and we will see how it goes.”
