The China news is not suprising. There was already news that China is getting there very own series (and most likely toy line) in 2014 that will run while the US has their very own show and toyline. The world has changed and the global market is now as important as the US market. (this tred is easily seen in the film industry but this is basically the same thing, entertainment) Countries like China are gainign a middle class which means a whole new bunch (millions and millions) of peopel with extra dough to spend. Hasbro, I wish you the best of luck. You have made it possible for me to grow up on G1 84 and then went solid with zero breaks since I came back in 95 (BW). Not many brands can say that and I look forward to the next 30 years
That's a pretty interesting graph there. I'm curious as to where this China push will lead to. Will it affect other markets? i.e. will there be a flood of Chinese characters released here, too, or will they be "Western-ized" or even flat-out ignored?
The reason their US market sales have dropped dramatically is that their distribution, sustainability,and diversity is horrible. When they release the same characters over and over and over again not only in transformers but all of the lines the toys stagnate. Children need to be presented with many different options that will continue to peak their interest. They need to have bad guys that the good guys can fight.... For some reason certain people in Hasbro don't understand this concept they think kids want the same figure over and over and over again in different decoration. Look at the most recent Spiderman and Ironman figures. There are some people within Hasbro that identify this issue and have voiced their concerns to the higher-ups however they are frequently ignored and/or shot down. I really don't see good things for the US market from Hasbro in the future. We will become the second and third look as China and other European countries continue to grow.
I'd like to point out that the little revenue chart kind of says otherwise. It's seems that only in these recent years of multiple toys for one characters is revenue up, and 2010 which featured the most diverse selection of good guys and bad guys seems to be one of the weaker years.
GAH! Again they show off the logo for MICRONAUTS as a new brand...they've been showing it as "new" for 3 years now without showing us anything else besides the logo and NY Comicon teaser comic a couple years back...freaking DO SOMETHING with the property allready!
With the announcement a couple weeks back of the Transformers 4 actor search/reality show competition in China, it was obvious that a significant impetus for this was Hasbro's marketing machine expanding it's involvement further into the enormously lucrative emerging Chinese market. and now, here are some stats that support their solid business decision.
2011 was a movie year, meaning that growth was BOUND to fall in 2012. Had G.I. Joe: Retaliation not been moved to this year I doubt we would have seen a fall in growth. For Transformers as a standalone the graphs we saw at NYCC (iirc) showed that the Prime lines sales in 2012 were still at least 3 times that of the pre-movie lines. So, y'know, they're still making money hand-over-fist. EDIT: My bad, it was this years New York Toy Fair, not NYCC! Stupid tired brain!
Just curious to know what this means from when the next movie hits .will their be a lack of tfs in the US markets supporting the movie?
Happy to see that international markets are growing because I would LOVE to be able to buy shit without importing every single damn piece!