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Hasbro has posted some earning numbers that, on the surface, sound pretty scary, but in the long run, may not end up having the impact they would appear.  While Hasbro has reported a 47 Million Dollar decline in revenue through the first quarter of this year, it was consistent with their expectations and did not come as a surprise.

Economic woes forced retailers to focus some attention on their restock strategies, Easter came later in the year, and a general decline in consumer confidence all most likely had an affect on these numbers.  One nice bit of news is that the G.I. Joe brand was singled out by CEO Brian Goldner as being a good performer:

“We had a number of brands that performed well in the quarter including Playskool, Nerf, Play-Doh, Easy-Bake, Tonka, Star Wars, G.I. Joe and a number of board games including Scrabble, Sorry!, Connect 4, Guess Who?, and Operation. The Transformers brand continues to perform well, although below last years levels which reflected continued demand from the fall 2007 DVD release.”

I’m certain as the summer films start flooding, from Wolverine in May, to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in June, right up through G.I. Joe in August, things could look considerably different come the fourth quarter.  Check out the transcript of Hasbro’s conference call here, there’s a lot of mumbo jumbo, but some interesting reading mixed in as well.