Bottom line – Sales are down but profits are up thanks to cost cutting & higher prices. Monster High did well and Barbie was up.

“Looking at our second quarter results, we executed well and delivered solid performance despite the backdrop of a very challenging global economic climate that’s driving volatility in input costs and currencies, as well as creating a very cautious global retail environment. Additionally, we faced a difficult sales comparison with the release of the Cars 2 movie last year. We met the challenge of delivering a comparable level of sales by focusing on our priorities, including growing our core brands, evergreen entertainment properties, our most recent franchise, Monster High, and key international markets. For the first half of 2012, we experienced solid progress in core brands and markets. Overall shipments were up for the quarter, resulting in improved alignment of shipments, consumer takeaway and retail inventories for the first half. And I believe we are well positioned for the second half and the all-important holiday season.”

Other interesting tidbits from Kevin Farr (CFO) …

“Yes, and I think with regard to that, we’re on track to bring the diecast manufacturing into our plants effective 2013.

… And in the first half of the year, we’re really benefiting from lower royalties in Cars shipment, which were significantly lower in the first half of 2012, as we expected. The favorable impact from lower royalties expected to be less pronounced in the second half of the year, via higher sales of Batman, Brave and Cinderella, as well as the fact that our royalty-related entertainment business is a smaller portion of our total business in the second half of the year.”

Which means we’re not selling fewer CARS but we’re looking at it as we’re paying much less royalties! Take that House of the Mouse!

You can read the rest at SeekingAlpha – there is one more brief mention of CARS as it’s gone from a main “evergreen” property 1 quarter ago to listed with other entertainment properties “important” to Mattel including: “Batman The Dark Knight Rises, Disney Pixar’s Brave and Disney’s Jake and the Never Land Pirates, Disney Princess, WWE, Dora the Explorer, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and more.”

If you want the official word, it’s at Mattel’s corporate site here or the PowerPoint Presentation of the Financial numbers HERE.