John Baulch The Friday Blog: Back Where We Started From

Another week of FOMO beckons, as my inbox and LinkedIn feed are slowly being taken over by people heading off to New York for Toy Fair this weekend. I would love to join them, but with my operation scheduled for March, unfortunately I will miss out this year.

The show is back in its traditional mid-February slot for the first time in a while, as it rounds off Toy Fair Season in true New York style – big, bold and unashamedly brash. New York Toy Fair has been searching for its identity for a few years, experimenting with different time frames and even proposing alternative locations at one stage (although of course that never materialized). Ultimately, after all these dalliances, it has ended up right back where it started. The event has a history and a connection with the Big Apple which appears to be hard to break up with – a true Valentine’s affair for the ages.

I will certainly miss seeing the big reveals from the US toy giants, some of which have already been teased this week ahead of the show, for it is also ‘financial reporting season’ (another big factor in the show remaining in New York in this time frame – the analyst community is based in New York, not El Segundo, which is also the case with a vast swathe of the media community).

Hasbro was the first of the big hitters to announce its 2025 results, which proved beyond doubt that the company is very much ‘back’. A 14% increase in revenue comfortably outpaced the overall toy market last year, and I hear the year has started well for the UK team, with sales outperforming the 6% market increase in January, according to Circana. In addition, Hasbro confirmed that it has signed a deal with Warner Bros to become the Harry Potter master toy partner in 2027. Having faced a few years of less than positive reactions from some quarters of the media and investor communities, it’s nice to see the company getting its mojo back, and I am sure there is lots more to come.

Mattel was the next company out of the gate: while there was a modest decline in full- year sales globally, the international market was one of the bright spots, with a healthy 6% increase. Mattel also had a major licensing announcement to accompany its results, as it confirmed it has signed a deal with Paramount to become the new master toy partner for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, another deal which will take effect in 2027. With several big movie-related ranges and high-profile new launches in the pipeline for this year, Mattel is clearly also set for a strong year.

I am sure that many other major US players such as MGA, Jazwares and Moose will have important new launches on show as well next week, giving the New York Toy Fair a solid base from which to rebuild. If you’re heading to New York, I look forward to hearing how it’s going and what the buzz is from the show when you get a minute. And the good news is that there’s no sign of snow on the weather forecasts, so there shouldn’t be any of the travel nightmares that people travelling to Nuremberg had to contend with a few weeks ago.

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