This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio. Well shares of Mattel they were up as much as eight percent in today's sessions, settling by the close up about six tents of a percent. This after the company posted third quarter results that exceeded expectations. They're working through their supply chain bottlenecks. We want to know more about that, that's for sure.
Let's get to it and back with us. As Mattel CEO non cries he is on the phone in California. You know, I'm nice to have you here with us. How are you good, Carol, thank you for inviting me to the show. Well, it's so nice to have you back with us. Lots of questions, Um, what was the best of the quarter, What was the worst of the quarter. Well, you know, we we had another great quarter with strong
consumer demand for our products. We achieved growth and gain market share, and now for five quarters in a row,
we expect to continue growing. In the fourth quarter, we expect to gain market share and have a strong holiday season, and we we are on track to achieve our highest fullier growth rate in decades, just increased our guidance for the third time this year, so you know, we are definitive, performing at the high level and executing on our strategy and on a clear path to improve profitability and accelerate
top line growth. Tim was riveted by my stories of growing up with barbies and loving them and inheriting the barbies from my older sisters. It was a big deal growing up. What what what's being bought? What are families buying for their kids? You know, we we really saw
strong demand across the portfolio. We saw growth in um in the barbie, we saw growth in hot wheels, The entire U Darlls category grew, the vehicles category was growing, and then we saw really really strong growth in our action figures category that was up fifty percent in the quarter and seventy percent year to date. But this is really about the entire portfolio showing strength. We're actually grew.
Uh we grew market share in our three core categories where we are global later, in two of our challenging categories, and in each of our four regions. So the performance was comprehensive pretty much across the board. You know, how were you able to successfully work through supply chain challenges.
It's been a couple of minutes since we started the interview, and it's shocking that we haven't talked about the supply chain yet because it is, but it has, it really has been dominating every earnings report and every call that we hear from companies this quarter. What specifically were you able to do in the most recent quarter and what are you doing in this quarter to alleviate the pressures
that you're facing when it comes to the supply challenges. Yes, I mean, look, our supply chain and commercial organizations were very successful in working through global subvention disruptions in trying to meet consumer demand. It's not that we were not impacted, but we did anticipate your supply and longer lead times in factor that into our planning with very specific mitigating actions.
And this is really where our scale, expertise and flexible supply chain model, which we restructured over the last three years. It's plain to our advantage and we are ready for a strong holiday season. But do you have barbies and hot wheels right now stuck in ships and containers that off the coast of the Port of l A right now, Well, we actually have sufficient inventory we have the capacity and we are ready for you know, for for the season.
We we we have our writtle orders that we see strong, We have our written promotional plans in place, and we believe we have the inventor in the capacity to meet our our new new guidance for the year and expect to have lots of toys under the trees, um for
for you know, for the holiday season. Well, so let's let's dig a little bit deeper into that, you know, because one of the things that we've been wondering, and we saw it during the pandemic where people were just hoarding and buying tons of stuff and stocking their cupboards, and companies can do the same thing by doing advance buying and just kind of overstocking. Um people do it
with unit sales or something or certain commodities. You know, how much did you kind of overstocked potentially or by to make sure that your shelves that you had sufficient inventories for this season, Because it sounds like you've got or already what you think you're going to need for the holiday season where they need to be already that you're not worried about it being stuck on on ships out and sea. Is that fair to say? Yeah? You know, we as I said, this is not that we don't
see issues. We do work for those challenges and still expect to achieve growth in the fourth quarter and growth growth in the holiday season. Right we are working very closely with our retail partners who look to have the right product at the right time with the right retailer. We're seeing the man remaining strong and do what we can to try and meet all of it. We may not be able to meet all of the demand, but we do what we can to try and meet and
still expect to grow in the season. So may not be able to meet all the demand on the flip side, you know. And is it possible that you over order or overproduce at this point, I guess I overproduced for you know, and that you're left with stock after the holiday season. That's possible to now, we don't believe this is the case. If anything, we are chasing demand. The man is outpacing capacity right now and we are chasing it. Uh. You know, this is what we do. This is exactly
the core competence of the company. Uh. And we traditionally excelled during the holiday season. It does take a lot of planning. You know, we create the man and then we try to it and we work closely with the retailers to care for this demand and be able to uh to meet the needs of of our of our consumers.
We talked earlier this year Enon and the narrative really was around the idea of parents and grandparents spoiling their kids as a result of COVID lockdowns, hybrid schooling as things start to open up, as kids potentially under the age of twelve could get vaccinated very soon, are you concerned that demand will dry up and kids will start
doing experiential things rather than buying things. You know, the tour industry was expected to grow before the pandemic, and and and and and we we believe it is a growth category on the other side of the pandemic. It is fair to say that the pandemic did stimulate demand, but you know, it wasn't all positive. They're also headwinds, as we know in terms of supply chain, COVID related lockdowns,
written closures, and other factors that impeded demand. But that said, we haven't just at Mattel, you know, we just we haven't just tagged onto the industry. We grew almost double the industry growth rate in the quarter UM and and near today. In fact, we even accelerated market share gains
in the third quarter. So we're not you know, we're not just riding the wave of COVID related demand, but we're actually ahead of the industry and do what we can to continue to innovate and create great product that inspires and detained and developed children through play. Hey, you know, I was both of us, Tim and I were at
the Milk and Institute Global Conference this past week. It feels like a week ago, but it was just the earlier this week, and I hosted a panel with Global m and A. And one of the things that came up is that yes, companies are continuing to do deals. We're on track for a record year virtually, perhaps maybe even five children. But the other thing that they said that's happening a lot of is alliances. And I think the partnerships that you do, whether it's w w E
or with Disney, are important to your growth story. Tell me about like the renewed partnership with w w E. How does that help Mattel specifically on the top and bottom line with with our increased capability and the stronger platform that we have built, we have more more capacity
to uh grow partnerships. This is something that we were less focused on in the past given the strength of our own catalog, but we now can expand our business through the part through these partnerships with with you know, with with key players, with very important franchises, global franchises, in addition to what we do with our own catalog. So the w w E is a great example of renewing a long term relationship for a really great action
figure franchise. And you know, likewise, also we just expanded our relationship with Disney for the Pixel movie Light here. This is the origin story of Brand's Light here, which is expected to be very toy added, very playful, great
movie um and a lot of really exciting products. We have the global licensing rights to develop the toy line and expect expect to launch that in the summer of So another opportunity for us, another growth growth and liver for Matteil leveraging the scale, averaging network of more than four hundred and seventy thousand doors where we sell our products. You know what I'm wondering about, Mattel Television thirteen shows in production, thirty plus or in development new content on Netflix.
Help us draw the line and help our investors our audience draw the line from Netflix content and what kids see on the screen and what parents see on the screen to the actual moving of products off of shelves or or or online. This is about capturing the full value of our intellectual property, which which is the mid
too long term part of our strategy. And what we say is that in addition to what we do on the toy side of our business, where we see a lot of room to grow and improve profitability, we can also extend into highly a creative verticals that are directly adjacent to the toy industry, all driven by big franchises, big brands that's rise above the noise level and can
become successful a creative businesses in and of themselves. So MATEL Film, MATEL Television, our digital gaming business, digital experiences, UH, licensing and merchandising music, all our verticals where we can participate and have to more value given the strength of our catalog. And as you mentioned, Mattel Television is not arriving with many shows eight shows this yer alone. Yeah, and you know, just got about ten seconds. What's your favorite toy? I know is that I always ask you that,
do you get a new one? I have so many favorite stories. Look out for the new Barbee Dreymhouse. Always Drymhouse, always a classic. The new Dreymhouse is incredible. Alex Steele's daughter wants that I know that all right Universe series. In my house, it's all about Thomas and friends. Of course it is. Hey, you know, be well and hopefully we'll talk to you through the holiday season. In On cries, Chairman and chief executive officer at Mattel