Mattel 1998 Annual Report Download - page 5

Our first step was taken in March 1997 when we
announced our merger with Tyco, the third largest U.S.
toy company. This merger, which gave us brands such as
Matchbox and Tyco Radio Control, enabled us to transform
our Hot Wheels brand franchise into a broader global
Wheels strategy that has grown three-and-a-half times in
just 2 years. We now hold the #1 market share position
in vehicles, having gone from a $200 million Hot Wheels
business in 1996 to a worldwide Wheels franchise totaling
$700 million last year. The Tyco merger also gave us the
opportunity to integrate the Infant and Preschool brands
of Sesame Street, Magna Doodle and View-Master
into the Fisher-Price brand, which along with
Disney Infant and Preschool and Winnie the
Pooh, is now a $1.7 billion franchise.
Then, in June of last year, we announced
our acquisition of Pleasant Company
and its blue-chip American Girl brand,
which immediately brought us an
additional $300 million in direct-to-
consumer business, and gives us the
infrastructure to take many of Mattel’s
brands directly to the consumer. This
makes infinite sense as we seek to
expand our channels of distribution.
But to achieve our long-term goals, we did
more than just make strategic acquisitions last
year. We put our core brands back in order —
most importantly, Barbie. For the first four months
of 1998, we focused on cleaning up our Barbie retail
inventory, which had been affected by 1997’s late shipping
of Barbie products. Because we focused on clean sell-
through, we did have a 14 percent shipping decline for
1998, but we sold more Barbie products over the counter
in 1998 than any other year in Barbie doll’s history.
And we reduced our retail inventory by more than
3Fifty million American Girl catalogues are sent
to the homes of consumers each year.