Forum - View topicNEWS: Bandai Co. Profits Down
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AnimeHeretic
 Posts: 179 |
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Oh, so it's our fault, is it? 
More seriously, 25% drop in a year is a pretty big hit, though OTOH, $90 mil profit is nothing to sneer at. Of course, given that sales only fell 0.2% but profits fell 25.5% (presuming the decimal isn't out of place), I think that reflects more costs than anything else-- or overpriced volumes 
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che_guevara
Posts: 102 Location: Near Boston |
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That's a good profit, but... 26% decrease is pretty huge.
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Pepperidge
 Posts: 1104 Location: British Columbia, Canada |
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Well, maybe if they'd get their Canadian distribution up and working properly that would change.
EDIT: Of course, it doesn't say anywhere on here that US sales have dropped. I suspect that the actual decrease has more to do with the fact that 2003 was one of their biggest years ever thanks to Gundam SEED's extraordinary performance in Japan. Of course, I'm just guessing here. |
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Twage
Posts: 356 Location: North Bergen, NJ |
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But that wouldn't explain the sales drop of only .2%. I suspect there've been some bad decisions about spending money at Bandai over the past year and that's where the dough went. It'll be interesting to find out what those bad decisions were. |
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Pepperidge
Posts: 1104 Location: British Columbia, Canada |
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I hope it turns out to be D.I.C.E.
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TiredGamer
 Posts: 246 Location: Florida |
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I wouldn't be surprised if part of that loss is also the falling value of the U.S. dollar.
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Gamelore
 Posts: 76 |
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I can tell you one thing, it's sure not *me* causing that dip in profit and sales. I spent between $1k-$2k on Bandai titles last year. I don't know how they're calculating sales, but considering the increasingly prevelant selection of anime in stores, it can't be the absolute quantity.
Looking at their huge overhead and tiny profit, if they simply got *slightly* more people to buy, or raised prices like 3-4% they would have easily made just as much profit last year. |
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appleturbo
Posts: 51 |
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I can't believe Bandai is blaming us for their loss in profit when a few years ago they couldn't care less about us.
Besides the weak dollar which I'm sure has a lot to do with it along with the economy, how about putting out a better product! Yeah I know people have their favorite titles but overall there is a lot shows that are just not good. |
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10420 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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I also found the comment about low US sales being blamed for their lower profit given that they only had a .2% drop in sales.
However, there are a couple things that need to be kept in mind. First off, the .2% drop is across the board, North American sales may have dropped by 20% for all we know, with Japanese sales up slightly. If the case is something along those lines, than poor US sales are obviously a part of the problem. Especially if the increased expenses were in the US (it wasn't said). Secondly, a few of you seem to be forgetting that there's a lot more to Bandai in North America than Bandai Entertainment BEI). BEI is a subsidiary of Bandai America (BAI), Bandai's American toy company. It wasn't stated if the lower than expected sales came from BAI or BEI or both. Id guess that BEI's sales were less than expected (given the general trend for 2004), but I'm not able to guess about BAI. The full details for that period haven't been posted online by Bandai yet, but they should be soon. -t |
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vherub
Posts: 49 |
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Bandai also decided to relaunch Tamagotchi this past year. I haven't really heard much about this being a success so perhaps profits were dragged down by the initiative.
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Justin
Posts: 16 Location: Newport Beach, CA |
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Is there a misprint here? 9.45 billion yen == 90 million USD 192.69 billion yen == 1.84 million USD Is that conversion right? I'm confused. |
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Tempest
I Run this place. ANN Publisher Posts: 10420 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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Missprint. It should be 1.84 billion
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Emerje
 Posts: 7336 Location: Maine |
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Tamagotchi could be a factor, but not the sole reason. Looking at their product line they had several misses in 2004. Knights of the Zodiac- Poor show performace resulted in very low sales. A second series of figures would have been canceled and dumped over seas if KBToys hadn't supposedly bought their warehouse stock and sold it in stores on an instant clearance. They issued a card game as well which also turned out to be a failure. Navia Dratp- I'm willing to bet that very few people even know what this game is, that should tell you something. Very poorly managed and few, if any, major retailers actually bought this line. Gundam- Poor, poor Gundam. Poof that there really can be too much of a good thing. Over saturation of the toy market in 2003 caused many retailers to have surplus stock that wouldn't move on it's own. Bandai's insistance to reissue figures several times over hurt the demand for the line causing retailers to clearance several pegs worth of toys. As a result major retailers like Target and Walmart refused to carry Gundam products other than the occasional model kit. SD Gundam- A second season of the popular show never materialized resulting in a significant drop in product demand. The line was expected to carry through much of the year, but soon Bandai found themselves in need of readjusting their strategy causing larger assortments to become smaller, figures to become cancelled, and even what was ment to be larger boxed toys to be released in a carded form (boxed Destroyer Dom with Gallop Tank set was released on a card sans Gallop Tank). Jagun Fighters- Another 2003 line that was ment to carry through to 2004 lacked popularity and also lacked a second series of toys. Astro Boy- I think we all know about the poor performance of Astro Boy in the US. End result was that merchandise sales were low as well. Bandai had a lot of money riding on this series, but it couldn't hold water on two different networks or in several retail chains. That said it shouldn't be much of a surprise that they're having trouble with profits from the BAI standpoint. For now it would seem their own strong toy retail performers are Teen Titans, Power Rangers, and yes, Strawberry Shortcake too. Early on for 2005 it would seem that Power Rangers SPD is doing well, but it may be still too early to tell for DICE. However DICE does have several flaws in its market strategy and it would seem that Walmart may not be picking this line up. Emerje |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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Japan is still suffering with a deep recession so if sales have risen there to be of any consequence, it would be one of the few companies there to have had such results.
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Nagisa
Moderator
 Posts: 6128 Location: Atlanta-ish, Jawjuh |
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Thing is, the Gundam merchandise might have sold had they issued toys based on popular mobile suits - Wing and certain Universal Century titles, eventually SEED. But instead, 90% of what they pushed was cannon fodder G Gundam crap that no one cared about. Seriously, was it really necessary to force about half a billion Skull Gundam & Ashura Gundam toys on everyone to every one Wing Zero, God Gundam, or RX-79[G]Ez8? The DVDs seem to still sell rather well, though. |
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