JAKKS Pacific started the year strong in 2025, posting a 26% year-over-year jump in first-quarter net sales to $113.3 million, up from $90.1 million in Q1 2024, attributed to solid growth across its core toy categories and global markets.
The Toys/Consumer Products segment stood out, pulling in $107 million for the quarter, a 30% increase driven by strong retail performance and sustained demand for licensed and evergreen brands. On the flip side, the Disguise division took a hit with costume sales dropping 19% to $5.8 million as the category hit a seasonal lull.
“We are happy to share our results after a strong start to the year at JAKKS. We’ve seen great consumer reaction year-to-date with solid consumer sales across major accounts and major markets,” says Stephen Berman, Chairman and CEO of JAKKS Pacific. “It has certainly been a moment of reflection to see our industry’s long-standing tradition of building substantial global partnerships come under scrutiny. Yet rather than viewing this as a setback, we see it as an opportunity to showcase the agility, innovation, and resilience that define not only our industry, but especially JAKKS as a nimble, focused company.”
In North America, sales climbed to $92.2 million from $73.8 million a year ago. International business is heating up too, especially in Europe, where sales more than doubled from $5.7 million to $11.8 million.
On an earnings call with analysts, John Kimball, Chief Financial Officer at JAKKS Pacific, confirmed that the American consumer will ultimately bear the real cost of tariffs. “We’ve received some outreach asking for our take on what long-term tariffs would mean for our business and the industry at large. Our perspective is that any lasting tariff on import of a product is essentially a consumer tax. The cost will be passed along to the consumer in higher retail prices.”
“There is no magic wallet that is going to pay for it,” Kimball continued. “Our industry has already seen too many factories, wholesalers, and retailers go bankrupt over the past ten years without these additional burdens being in place. With all the players in the industry facing the same cost surge, the medium to longer term fallout would be less product innovation, as the industry is always positioning itself favorably for impulse and widely accessible purchase occasions.”
Despite the tariff challenges, Kimball and Berman mentioned JAKKS’ strong financial position, deep licensing partnerships, and growing international business as high points. Additionally, JAKKS believes that fallout from tariff issues can create whitespace opportunities for the company as other toymakers run into problems.
“We are aggressively looking at various opportunities with licenses and product categories that we can go after due to some of these companies having a difficult time,” Berman said.
