Disney+ will fuel Hasbro gains long after the pandemic is over as Star Wars toy sales jump
Hasbro is proving that it doesn't need movie theaters to sell Star Wars toys.

While the Rhode Island-based company saw sales of its licensed content from entertainment studios fall 12% to $1.08 billion for the full year, its sales of Star Wars grew by 70% over that period.

Last year marked the first time since 2014 that Disney did not release a Star Wars film in theaters, but sales of Grogu — the child formerly known as Baby Yoda — and of toy lightsabers helped fuel growth for the toy franchise.

Movie theaters have been deprived of content from Hollywood because of the pandemic, but Disney+ is making up for that loss with shows like "The Mandalorian."

"What's been great for our business is that streaming content is now being enjoyed by so many people, it has really hit a tipping point," CEO Brian Goldner said Monday on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." "And that tipping point means that you have tens of millions of people watching a piece of content over a given early period of time that allows us to 'eventize.'"

Earlier Monday, Hasbro said fourth-quarter earnings fell to $105.2 million, or 76 cents per share, from $267.3, or $2.01 per share, a year earlier. But after excluding items, Hasbro earned $1.27 per share, which was better than the $1.14 per share analysts were expecting.

Fourth-quarter revenue expanded by 21% to to $1.72 billion during the quarter to top a Refinitiv estimate of $1.69 billion, aided by strong sales of games such as Jenga, Scrabble and Dungeons & Dragons.

Hasbro shares initially rose on the news, but shares were down about 2.6% earlier afternoon as investors worried about investments the company is making in new video content and advertising.