Funko’s sales continued to decline, down 14.4% for the quarter, from $251.9 million in Q1 2023 to $215.7 million in Q1 2024. Interim CEO Michael Lunsford attributed the decline to a reduction in entertainment content due to the Hollywood strikes last year in the conference call.
U.S. sales led the decline, down 17.4%. Acting CFO Yves LePendeven noted in the call that European sales have a higher percentage of evergreen sales, and so were less impacted by the reduction in Hollywood content.
Direct-to-consumer sales continued to grow as a percentage of sales, up 5% in real terms and now at 23% of sales, vs. 19% of sales in Q1 last year. Another positive sales note, from Lunsford in the call, was that Funko is now getting impulse space in the front of the two largest mass merchants, with a possible future in the toy department, which he regarded as an improvement in the channel.
Funko re-affirmed its guidance for the year, which is for sales of $1.047 billion to $1.103 billion in 2024, compared to sales of $1.1 billion in 2023.
Funko announced that former Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro Gaming President Cynthia Wiilliams will join the company as its new CEO later this month (see “WotC Prez to Funko”), and she was introduced and greeted analysts in the conference call.
