Hasbro Financial Earnings Reports (ongoing)
For an update on how well Hasbro is doing, plus some tidbits on a number of Transformers elements, they recently held a quarterly investor/shareholder conference call.
It mentions some upcoming projects, but nothing too specific.
One thing of note is the creation "Allspark Pictures", for their live-action movies... including Transformers 5, My Little Pony and Jem.... leaving the existing "Hasbro Studios" unit to work on their TV projects.
Hasbro Q1 Earnings report and conference call
There isn't much in the way of news in the latest quarterly report, but for those who are interested in these things, this is a link to all the numbers... and there are a number of conflicting elements and figures, leaving a lot of room for interpretation.
One notable thing is that they mentioned to the investors about their future plans for Transformers Movies, which we already know about... plus an odd vagueness of when the next one should be out. (if a movie of this size is coming out in 2017, they should have a date known by now with a production schedule, and pre-production started with some of the cast and crew already signed up)
Quote:
Our plan with the studio and filmakers you may have heard some writers being hired and we have in fact brought in Akiva Goldsman to lead a group of writers to really create a strategic plan around Transformers. We think there are any number of stories to be told from the brand that has been around for 30 years with amazing canon and mythology. We would expect the sequel to the Transformers movie [TF4] to happen in 2017.
Hasbro 2nd Quarter Financial report
TFW seems to be sitting in on these, so here are this quarter's financial details for Hasbro and Transformers... for those interested.
Apparently RID has been doing well, including licensing for that line.
As expected and projected, this year has been down for Transformers, due to it being a non-Movie year.
Total revenue for Hasbro was down for the April-June quarter, dragged down by the International revenue (NOT sales, as International Revenue is the commission that Hasbro America gets from the sales in other countries, which also has to pay for the running of the Local Branches), which dropped by 9% (our region was bad, but Europe was worse), noted as being due to the strengthening US$... so expect some pain with toy prices here and in other countries as Hasbro America adjust their commission quotas from the foreign branches to compensate for the stronger US$ (which earns Hasbro America less dollars even if the foreign branches are making the same profit).
So if Hasbro America wants X amount in US$ every quarter from their foreign markets and the US$ keeps getting stronger, those markets have to raise more money from their sales in their currency to meet that same US$ payment.
It is an American company after all, so they won't care about what it does to the prices or collectors in non-American markets... they would expect the employees of those non-American markets to find a way to raise the extra money, or else they would be replaced with people who can.
That's the hard fact of a publicly listed major corporation - at the end of the day they are only in it for the money, to keep the shareholders happy. They do have a little wiggle-room to try to entice certain demographics (like ours), but ultimately, if they need to make hard decisions to meet budget requirements and save their share-price, we are not their safety net... cheap kiddie toys for parents giving gifts would be.
This is a nice timeline to download, even if it is watermarked... as it has a brief timeline of Hasbro's history since it's 1923 beginning.
(not long now before their 100th anniversary)
And as a bit of a tease, we get a slide that reveals some new old toylines coming back for Hasbro soon - Jem, MASK, Micronauts, Stretch Armstrong, and Action Man.
The confirmation of MASK should excite some here, as they were a similar toyline in the 1980s (converting toys), so there were fans for both lines at the time. (especially if you had parents or relatives buy you a transforming toy as a present, and it ended up being something from MASK, Machine Men or Robotech because they didn't realise it had to say "Transformers" on the box)
I think it is sad to see that GIJoe isn't listed as one of their future brands, and instead the Action Man line is, which was what GIJoe was called in some other markets.
With almost no products during their 50th anniversary, and still no definite sign of a 3rd movie being released any time soon, maybe Retailers are just not showing any interest in the toyline at the moment after the huge mess caused by the second GIJoe movie (the movie was pushed back 9 months at the last minute by the Movie Studio to make it 3D, which killed off any interest in the toyline by Retailers who didn't want them 9 months before the Movie comes out, and it probably also meant missing factory production schedules for most of the later wave Movie toys... because they couldn't just squeeze them in later when other toylines or products were needed to be made).
Hasbro 3rd quarter earnings report
Sometimes these earnings reports will reveal some new info or details, but this one doesn't. It is still interesting to follow, to see how the Transformers Brand, and Hasbro in general, are doing (financially).
The "bad" news is that Transformers is down by about a third for a year after a Movie year. But that isn't really bad news, as a drop off is always expected after a movie year.
The good news is that it seems that the post-movie drop off of earnings/profit for Transformers is actually better than they expected, being supported by RID (and its cartoon) and Generations.
Even Rescue Bots are doing well, along with licensing (fees) for Transformers in general (despite licensing as a whole being down), prompting comments of them needing to look into broadening the Brand on a global scale to maximise all areas, not just the core toy element.
Hasbro 2016 first quarter financial report
For anyone else who follows these things, Hasbro have just had their financial report presentation for the first quarter of 2016, and on the whole they have improved on a year ago, but took a hit to their licensing revenue (which is only about 5% of their earnings, and their main revenue is from toys, so they shouldn't be worried about licensing if they keep failing to use it as free marketing (by making it cheap or free) in order to draw the general public into buying their main revenue products - the toys).
Despite the absence of a Transformers movie to drive up sales, they had a 20% increase over Q1 of 2015 (excluding licensing), most likely thanks to the Star Wars movie in the previous quarter (toy sales for the months after the December release).
With a Star Wars Movie every December, and a Transformers movie every June for the next three years, the revenue and profit growth should be more levelled during that time, as opposed to their recent ups and downs between each Transformers Movie.
Anyway, there are some slides and states posted up on TFW from the presentation to digest.
Hasbro financial reporting for 2016 Q3
The latest quarter earnings for Hasbro has been released, covering July to September, and Transformers have done well despite no new movie (most likely due to the release of Titans Return during this quarter). Plus, their International earnings look to have again grown more than their domestic earnings.
In their Domestic (North America) market, the Hasbro Brands improved 2% while their licensed/partner Brands improved 13%.
In their International markets, the Hasbro Brands improved 4%, while their licensed/partner Brands improved 30%.
In general the Boys brands (which includes Transformers) declined Domestically, but improved Internationally, while Transformers was noted as a positive performer in both markets.
Unfortunately, Machinima was heavily highlighted when praising the growth of fan-oriented Transformers products, as if it had anything to do with the success of Generations (when it managed to fizzle out in the fandom and barely got a significant amount of youtube views by the general public).
Hasbro 2017 first quarter revenue results
For those who follow these sorts of things, the first quarter revenue results for 2017 has been released by Hasbro, showing that they were doing fairly well for the first 3 months of this year, despite being a period between two big movies (Star Wars in 4th quarter 2016 and Transformers in 2nd quarter 2017)... which should mean a great year for Hasbro this year. (hopefully meaning more resources spent on non-movie toylines like Generations in the next year)
International revenue was flat, but that was down to exchange rate fluctuations than a drop in sales in the non-American countries, as the International revenue is their commission syphoned from non-American countries, not the actual sales in those countries. (which is why the toys are so much more expensive in other countries than America, as we have to pay for the operating costs of the local branch of Hasbro in addition to sending money back to the head office of Hasbro... when American toys only have to pay for the operating costs of their branch of Hasbro)
Hasbro 3rd Q 2017 earnings report
For those who follow how Hasbro are doing as a company (which reflects on how Transformers will be doing, as it is one of their own brands), the third quarter results are out, with mostly positive news, despite the impact of the ToysRUs bankruptcy hitting their revenue slightly (and it would have also affected all toy companies, so it wasn't seen as a big deal just to them).
Transformers and international markets are noted as improvers for that quarter, along with a big increase in their Hasbro Gaming division.