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Mattel’s sales dropped by a fifth over the toy industry’s critical holiday season, falling short of its expectations as consumers delayed their purchases and retailers ordered less new inventory.
“We entered the quarter expecting consumer demand to accelerate which did happen, including double-digit growth in December, but it came later than expected and was not enough to offset lower than expected demand in October and November,” Ynon Kreiz, Mattel’s chief executive, said in an interview.
The bigger impact on the group was that this slower start to the traditional peak shopping season prompted retailers to rein in their orders of new inventory. Consumer demand for Barbie dolls was down only 1 per cent in the quarter, Kreiz said, but the lower retail orders meant that the brand reported a double-digit fall in sales.
Shares tumbled more than 11 per cent in after-hours trading on Wednesday.
Mattel announced a resumption of share buybacks, saying it could spend $200mn on repurchases nine years after it suspended them as its sales declined. It also raised its target for an existing cost savings programme from $250mn to $300mn, without giving details of any lay-off plans.
Kreiz, who has overseen a rebound in the group’s revenues since joining in 2018, said his strategy of combining efficiency with plans to make more of its intellectual property was still working.
“We ended the year in the strongest financial position the company has been in a long time,” he said.
Net sales for the three months to December 31 fell by 22 per cent to $1.4bn, or 19 per cent on a constant currency basis, while net income dropped by $210mn to $16mn for adjusted earnings per share of 18 cents, compared to 53 cents a year earlier.
The announcement followed news from Hasbro, Mattel’s chief rival, that its fourth-quarter revenues had fallen by 17 per cent, prompting the maker of Monopoly and Transformers to cut 1,000 jobs, or 15 per cent of its workforce.
