New My Little Pony, Transformers, and Magic: The Gathering content among Hasbro’s mass roll-out announcements

It was a flurry of major new announcements across each of its sectors that Hasbro issued throughout its first all virtual investor event this week, including new film and TV content for its biggest franchises including My Little Pony, Transformers, and Magic: The Gathering.

In an address opened by Hasbro’s chairman and CEO, Brian Goldner, the entertainment powerhouse kicked off proceedings by detailing new financial reporting segments: Consumer Products, Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming, and Entertainment.

“We have simplified our structure to maximise our growth and provide a clearer view to the drivers of Hasbro revenues, profit, margin, and cash generation,” said Goldner during the event.

“Our expectation is that we return to growth in revenues, earnings, and EBITDA in 2021. This includes revenue growth in all three segments to potentially achieve double-digit revenue growth across Hasbro for the year.”

The Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming segment will include all revenue associated with the Wizards of the Coast tabletop and digital games, including Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons, as well as licensed Hasbro digital gaming across the portfolio.

Entertainment spans all revenue associated with Hasbro and eOne entertainment across Family Brands, TV and Film, and music.

The announcement came with an extensive roll-out of new announcements across each of the segments, that included the detailing of new animated and live-action TV and film releases across some of Hasbro’s most iconic entertainment franchises, including My Little Pony, Transformers, Peppa Pig, Magic: The Gathering, and Dungeons and Dragons.

Consumer Products

Hasbro was quick to project a growth of the consumer products revenue above the industry growth rate, fuelled by an increase in its ecommerce business which it expects to make up for 50 per cent of all consumer products business by 2025.

In its direct to consumer channels, Hasbro is to launch Hasbro Pulse to the UK, with additional markets to follow, while it has also detailed a partnership with Amazon on its PlaySkool brand with a new focus on learning and sustainability for pre-school audiences.

The firm is extending its partnership with Epic Games to continue a licensed roster of products for its Nerf and Games Fotnite collaborations, while expanding the IP into action figures and role play this year and beyond.

Hasbro also detailed three new Monopoly launches in Monopoly Builder, Monopoly Crooked Cash, and the community-based Monopoly campaign launching on March 19.

The company is also eyeing new innovation in the gaming space, aligning itself with voice technology to integrate Alexa into its gaming offering with The Wanted Bounty Hunters board game, a titles that gives players an in-game connection to Alexa and the cinematic world of The Mandalorian.

The toy maker will also be supporting its robust theatrical and streaming calendar of content this year with ranges spanning GI Joe, Ghostbusters, Marvel, Star Wars, and Disney Princess new releases.

Completing the bill, and in partnership with Merlin Entertainment, Hasbro will be welcoming the opening of the first Peppa Pig theme park in LEGOLAND Florida next year.

Wizards of the Coast

A segment now spanning its hobby and digital gaming audiences, Wizards of the Coast is, according to the firm, ‘approximately halfway to achieving its target of doubling revenue from 2018 to 2023.’

2020 Wizards of the Coast revenue was $816 million, with Magic: The Gathering revenue up 23 per cent and Dungeons and Dragons revenue up 33 per cent for the year.

Alongside new digital game launches for both Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons, the unit has detailed new crossover products within the collectables and social play space with partners Warhammer 40,000 by Games Workshop, and Middle Earth Enterprises, to include characters from The Lord of the Rings universe.

Entertainment

Finally, within its Entertainment segment, Hasbro currently has more than 200 projects underway across TV and film.

Franchise plans include those with Transformers which has a panned feature film for 2022, a new animated feature film in developments, a third instalment of Transformers: War for Cybertron on Netflix, a new 20-episdoe animated comedy series on Netflix called Transformers: BotBots, and a new original animated Transformer series with Nickelodeon.

Meanwhile, Magic: The Gathering currently has a feature film in development at Fox, as well as a premium animated series in production with Netflix, while Dungeons and Dragons has partnered with Paramount Pictures for its own feature film, and a number of television projects are in the works.

With My Little Pony, a CGI film will debut on Netflix this year, alongside a new computer animated series.

New Peppa Pig content will continue to roll out through to 2023 as well as PJ Masks.