Net sales of Disguise costumes were down to $9.6 million from $9.8 million in Q1 last year, a decrease of 2% globally.
Jakks Pacific, which owns Disguise reported its first quarter 2023 results, showing that overall the company had seen an 11% fall in sales to $107.5 million from $120.9 million last year. The gross profit was up to $31.4 million, or 29.2% of sales, compared to $29.9 million, or 24.7% of net sales in the prior year, driven by drastically reduced container and import-related costs, offset by higher royalty and product costs as a percentage of sales.
The company said that the fall in sales was driven primarily by lower sales in North America, which were down 17% to $6.6 million in costumes.
Stephen Berman, Jakks Pacific’s chairman and ceo, said: “We are pleased with our year-to-date performance as we close the first quarter and are excited about the possibilities for the remainder of the year. We shipped over $100 million worth of product in Q1 for the second consecutive year and it is the first time we’ve done that in back-to-back years since 2009.
“We have challenging revenue comparisons all year, but our significant gross margin improvement lessened the impact in the first quarter. Our Q1 gross profit dollars haven’t been this high since 2014. We managed inventory down further and eliminated most of our temporary warehouse capacity. And, as we previously disclosed, earlier in the quarter we apid down our long-term debt to less than $30 million.
“Our Q1 International business grew, with costumes increasing 64% to $3 million, with Latin American being particularly strong.
“There’s a lot more work to do in the short term to set us up for a strong holiday season, but the team is engaged and aggressively focused on continuing the positive momentum we’ve generated in recent years. It’s a great time to be at Jakks Pacific.”
