Hasbro (and Just About Every Other Toy Seller) Is Having an Amazing Year

Toy sales remain solid.
By Brian Sozzi ,

There's no telling whether Nintendo's Pokemon GO will eat into toy sales, but before the game arrived on the scene in July, the toy industry was enjoying another impressive year.

Toy maker Hasbro (HAS) - Get Report reported Monday that second-quarter sales rose 10% from the prior year to $878.9 million on the back of brisk interest in Star Wars toys, Nerf blasters and board games such as Pie Face and Yahtzee. Net earnings surged 25% year over year to 41 cents a share. Wall Street expected sales and earnings of $878.9 million and 39 cents a share, respectively. 

Hasbro shares rose 0.3% in premarket trading.

Hasbro pretty much saw strength across its product portfolio. Sales of toys for boys rose 4%, games notched an 8% increase, girls clocked in with a robust 35% gain (thanks to Disney Princess and Frozen) and pre-school rounded things out with a 5% increase. Through six months of the year, it appears Hasbro CEO's bold prediction on Star Wars toys is poised to come true. 

"We believe 2016 could be as big as 2015," Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner told TheStreet in a February interview regarding the potential for Star Wars. Goldner explained that its Star Wars toys business would likely benefit from the movie's home entertainment release in April and a new installment called Rogue One: A Star Wars Story arriving in theaters in mid-December. The company sold a mind-boggling $500 million worth of toys related to Star Wars: The Force Awakens last year. 

So far so good for Hasbro this year, as well as a few others in the toy game.

Amazon (AMZN) - Get Report said it sold more than 2 million toys globally on its latest Prime Day

Meanwhile, toy retailer Toys "R" Us' first-quarter same-store sales, which are sales from stores open longer than a year, increased a respectable 0.9%. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, adjusted for one-time items, rose 13% from the prior year to $79 million. In last year's first quarter, Toys "R" Us saw same-store sales rise 0.6%. The retailer is privately held but releases sales figures.

"The toy category just feels really hot right now," said Toys "R" Us Chairman and CEO David Brandon in an interview with TheStreet, pointing to strong momentum behind licensed toys such as Star Wars, robots and drones. Added Brandon, "Toy makers have gotten the price down [on many toys] to the level where it's really affordable to a regular family -- many of them provide an awful lot of excitement and innovation."

Now if kids could quickly get over their Pokemon GO obsession, perhaps the third quarter for the toy industry will be equally as fun as 2016 has been so far. 

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