(Reuters) -Hasbro Inc fell short of first-quarter revenue estimates on Tuesday as COVID-19 forced delays hammered the toymaker’s movie and TV production business.
The company in recent years has focused on entertainment production to power growth at a faster pace than traditional toy sales.
It bought Entertainment One, the firm behind Peppa Pig and “The Walking Dead” TV series, in 2019 in a bid to quickly expand its entertainment properties, but production setbacks and the closure of theaters led to a 34% fall in revenue at TV and film business.
The Monopoly maker’s net revenue rose 1% to $1.11 billion in the three months ended March 28, but missed analysts’ estimates of $1.17 billion, according to a Refinitiv IBES estimate.
Net earnings attributable to Hasbro was $116.2 million, or 84 cents per share, compared to a loss of $69.7 million, or 51 cents per share, a year earlier.
(Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
