4Kids Entertainment sold some $5.1 million worth of Chaotic Trading Cards during the second quarter, which ended on June 30th, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the company from posting a $5.5 million dollar loss for the quarter.  Sales associated with the Chaotic TCG more than doubled in Q2 from $2.4 million in Q1, but it wasn’t sufficient to offset lower licensing revenues from Yu-Gi-Oh!, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the Cabbage Patch Kids.

4Kids’ Chairman and CEO Alfred R. Kahn estimates that the company is still “on track to meet our previously announced target of $20-30 million in Chaotic TCG sales in 2008.”  Kahn cited improvements to the game’s online site, which have added animation, sound effects and modifications to allow for gameplay on less sophisticated equipment.  But the investment in the Chaotic online infrastructure and in “trading card company operations” resulted in higher costs for the quarter compared with expenses in Q2 of 2007, which helped fuel the larger losses ($5.5 million this year vs. $2.2 million in Q2 2007).

Kahn expects that the Dinosaur King property (see “Upper Deck Releasing Dinosaur King TCG”) will begin to add licensing revenue in the second half of the year along with a new Russian animated series GOGORiki.  Also starting next month 4Kids will be programming nine hours of Saturday morning children’s shows on two different networks, which should provide plenty of opportunities for growth in licensing and increased exposure for the Chaotic and Yu-Gi-Oh! properties (a new Yu-G-Oh! series will debut this fall (see “4Kids to Launch Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s”).