Mattel Announces Price Increases Due To Tariffs

It is being reported by the Wall Street Journal that Mattel which is considered the largest US toy company when it comes to sales will be scrapping its financial forecast stating that the current Tariff situation is making it to hard to predict consumer spending this year.

Mattel's Chief Executive Ynon Kreiz was quoted as saying "As we sit here today, we're modeling different scenarios, but its hard to tell where things will land and how the tariff situation will evolve."

Mattel who has moved some of it's manufacturing out China in recent years still produces about 40% of its toys there. Mattel is one of several conpanies supporting toy industry lobbying efforts asking for zero tariffs on toys.

President Trump last week made headlines when he suggested kids could make do with fewer dolls, "Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 doll, you know, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally".

In the WSJ article it mentions that Mattel plans on raising prices "where necessary" on it's US products to offset the costs of the Tariffs. The article doesn't given any specific like how much or on what products.

Mattel isn't the only company who has said recently that toy prices will be going up due to Tariffs. McFarlane Toys, Super7 and yesterday we told you how their were indications Hasbro would be following suit as well. We have heard rumblings that we could hear something more official on price increases from Hasbro as early as this week.

Besides price increases, their have also been strong indications that the Tariff situation could cause major delays and/or product shortages on shelves when it comes to toys here in the U.S. The NYT's last week quoted Greg Ahearn, chief executive of the Toy Association, the leading U.S. industry group representing 850 toy manufacturers who said, "we have a frozen supply chain that is putting Christmas at risk. If we don't start production soon, there's a high probability of a toy shortage this holiday season."