Word: coleco
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...characters. This year the two largest U.S. manufacturers, Hasbro and Mattel, expect to ring up more than $1 billion each in revenues for the first time ever. Total retail toy sales grew 20% last year, thanks to a healthy economy and the excitement stirred by such blockbuster products as Coleco's Cabbage Patch Kids and Hasbro's Transformer robots. That would be a tough performance to follow in any industry, but experts predict toy sales will jump an additional 10% in 1985, to $13.5 billion...
...because they rode up and down with the latest fads. Example: Rubik's Cube, which lasted only one season, 1981-82. Now the toy firms want to grow large enough so that they can take part in several trends at once and get a smoother ride. Hasbro, Mattel and Coleco, the No. 3 toymaker, will account for about 35% of this year's industry revenues, compared with less than 15% five years ago. But these big firms now compete with a manic rivalry that resembles that of computer or soft-drink companies...
...happen. The collective infatuation with the puckered face of the Cabbage Patch Kid is finally faltering. Toy & Hobby World magazine recently reported that Coleco Industries' cuddly doll ($59.95) lost its position as the best-selling toy in the U.S., a title it had held for 16 months. The new No. 1 is Hasbro Bradley's plastic-and-metal toy robot series, the Transformers (average price...
...Coleco disputes the trade magazine's findings, which were based on a telephone survey of 50 toy sellers. It claims still to be No. 1. But even if sales momentum has slowed, Coleco hopes to build an ever growing patch of ancillary products. Toy stores currently stock Coleco's Cabbage Patch doll pets ('Koosas) and infant dolls (Preemies). Coming soon: a doll-size fun fur, a pet pony and dolls dressed in foreign garb...
...shakeout is most severe in the home computer business, where price competition has been fierce. Coleco slashed the cost of its Adam computer from $750 to $500 last year in an unsuccessful effort to spur sales. In January the company decided to drop the Adam altogether after suffering a 1984 loss of $259 million on the machine. Commodore lost $20.8 million in the first three months of this year, partly because it reduced the basic price of its model 64 by 25%, to $145. And even IBM two months ago halted production of the PCjr, which had sold poorly with...