The success of the Star Wars franchise spreads out from Disney, as Habro announces impressed fourth quarter numbers, mostly based on Star Wars toy sales.
Despite failing to include Rey in any of their merch, much to the embarrassment of the production, and causing the PR nightmare hashtag #wheresrey, Hasbro’s number’s announcement this morning is very rosy, and it’s all because of Star Wars. According to this morning’s report the company raised their dividend by 11%, as the better-than-expected fourth quarter earnings report rolled in.
This morning’s report declared a $175.8 million in net income. That’s up 3.4% versus 2014’s fourth quarter sales. The revenues reached $1.47 billion, which is up 12.8% from the same period last year. This is well above the $1.37 billion that Wall Street was told to expect. Shares of the company are already heading north on the news.
According to Deadline: “CEO Brian Goldner told analysts that Star Wars “was very strong for us.” Revenues in the category for Boys were up 35% to $569.8 million.”
Note the “boys” category in that above quote. One of the huge issues that fans had with the Hasbro merchandise was the male-centric approach it took, in most cases cutting out the “girl” character Rey, who just also happens to be the star of the movie. To be fair, most executives at Hasbro has no idea Rey was going to be the central figure of the movie when the lines were developed, any more than the rest of us did. Remember, most of these sales were aimed to come prior to December 18th, starting on Force Friday in September and running straight through the 15 week period when the movie hit theaters and that rather large spoiler was revealed. Still, once parents were aware that Rey was the real star of the movie, many rushed out to but for their daughter as well, causing a PR embarrassment all round. Even J.J. Abrams had to say something to push Hasbro to fix it.
This is also worth noting because sales of “girl” toys that Hasbro =sold this past quarter dropped by 17% from this time last year. Perhaps next time they’ll be more careful? Though the CEO declined to say how much of the Star Wars revenue was part of this bottom line, investors were told they can expect something very much like this come fourth quarter 2016, when Rogue One hits theaters.