Barbie, Hot Wheels sales slip in Q1 for Mattel
Posted April 16, 2012 12:53 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Mattel Inc.’s latest quarterly financial report indicates kids’ toy tastes may be shifting as sales of perennial best-sellers Barbie and Hot Wheels are down.
The toymaker’s first-quarter profits plunged 53 per cent, due in part to lower-than-expected sales of Barbies and Hot Wheels and the costs associated with its acquisition of HIT Entertainment, which produces the Thomas the Tank Engine and Bob the Builder shows and products.
Sales were down six per cent in the quarter for one of the company’s best-known brands — Barbie — while sales of Mattel’s other girls’ brands spiked by 22 per cent.
Hot Wheels and Matchbox sales were also down six per cent. Mattel noted the results come amid a generally slow time of the year for toy sales.
Mattel posted a first quarter net income of $7.8 million US, down from $16.6 million at the same time last year.
Shares in the company fell $2.63, or 7.7 per cent, to $31.48 in afternoon trading Monday on the Nasdaq.
Last October, El Sugundo, Calif.-based Mattel announced it would buy HIT Entertainment for $680 million.
