Hasbro Fourth Quarter Down, But Full Year Revenues Are Up - To Refocus on Declining North America Market

Hasbro, Inc. held their earnings call this morning where they announced that their full-year revenues were up 7% to a record of $4.29 billion, compared to $4 billion in 2010. For the full year, the boys category jumped 35%, led by Transformers and Beyblade.

The Entertainment and Licensing segment revenues for the full-year were up 19% to $162.2 million, up from $136.5 million in 2010, from Transformers Dark of the Moon and reflects the sale of television programming globally, Hasbro reports.

However, operating profit in the Entertainment and Licensing segment was down to $42.8 million versus $43.2 million in 2010.

For the fourth quarter, Hasbro recovered slightly from last year's pithy holiday period, rising 4% with net revenues of $1.33 billion from $1.28 billion last year.

However, due to a negative foreign exchange, net earnings in the fourth quarter were slightly down to $139.1 million ($1.06 per share) from $140.0 million ($0.99/share) last year in the same quarter. Analysts predicted $1.05 per share.

CEO Brian Goldner addresses this negative fourth quarter outlook, saying "[Hasbro] did not meet our expectations for growth in the U.S. and Canada segment, as we experienced weaker demand than we had anticipated, especially post-Thanksgiving, including challenges in the Games & Puzzles category."

Mr. Goldner promises that there will be a new push to make their brands better. "We have taken significant steps by putting new leadership and new plans in place to re-accelerate growth and innovation in both of these important areas."

He continues that globally, there will be "relentless innovation of our core brands, the invention of new brands, and the expansion of play experiences into new immersive brand expressions."

It is quite obvious that Transformers, one of the company's core brands, is already seeing this expansion, including the introduction of Bot Shots.