Collectors of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic toyline were surprised to findout that their toys now carries “Made In India” instead of the usual “Made In China” or “Made In Vietnam”. Following a tip from fellow staff member Steevy Maximus, we dug into this new development to find out more.
Sure enough in an article published on The Wall Street Journal dating January 6th, Hasbro is indeed moving some of its toy manufacturing to India.
“John Leung, chairman of GFT Group Ltd., a manufacturer of Transformers, “Star Wars” and other toys for Hasbro that is based in China’s Guangdong province, said he plans to start producing soon from a rented factory in Chennai.
Eight years ago, GFT shifted much of its production from China to Vietnam, where today the company’s workers earn around $215 a month, less than Chinese counterparts’ salaries. But Vietnam is quickly becoming saturated with factories, Mr. Leung said.
“In the next eight to 10 years, Vietnam will be finished,” he said. He said Hasbro, based in Pawtucket, R.I., had urged him to set up shop in India.”
On our coverage of Hasbro’s Press & Investor Day 2015 Hasbro stated that they will be expanding into the Indian market and it seems as though the expansion is not just market penetration but manufacturing as well.
Since the very beginning of Transformers and G. I. Joe franchises, India exported the toys to the South-East Asian region under the brand name “Funskool” on behalf of Hasbro and even included Funskool Variants (sought after by many Joe collectors for their rarity). This new move may even benefit the collectors of the said region by having low production costs to decrease toy prices.
What would this mean for the G. I. Joe toys? Sound off on the thread associated with this news post.
News Post Photo: Courtesy of WSJ. Indian workers assembling Elmo dolls on behalf of Hasbro.
- Hasbro Transformerd India
At 16bit.com, Mr. Pawlus directed me to an interesting post at MLP Merch, discovering that many of the recent My Little Pony releases being found in Australia are being produced in India, and NOT China. Why does a My Little Pony toy mean anything to us? Adam Pawlus explains:
China is a de-facto one-stop shop for manufacturing - you can get screws, packaging, product, and raw materials pretty closely together. This has resulted in the rise of the middle class (as your high school teachers predicted as one of two default answers to almost any question), meaning higher wages and an appetite for more interesting goods. Companies therefore need to keep moving to keep costs down with lower wages or different regulations, or different quality control, or diversity in case one country's ports get clogged and you want to make sure you've got something. Transformers mostly moved to Vietnam a few years ago for new stuff, some of the older tools are still in China so be sure to check your various Platinum items with older molds and reissues to see where those came from. New stuff is coming from Vietnam with few to no exceptions, as far as I can tell. The toys are simpler and, in many ways, cheaper.
India has worked with Hasbro before (Funskool's G.I. Joe line comes to mind) so seeing things like this mean we're hopefully going to see them ratcheting up their options and hopefully continuing to deliver us all consistent wares at hopefully not-increasing prices. They make some changes based on freight, but thanks to trade agreements and other loopholes we could even see returns to some of the odder manufacturing techniques of the 1990s, such as an item being manufactured in Asia, assembled and/or packaged and Mexico, and shipped to the United States for sale. It's a strange, newish world.
Credit: MLP Merch by way of 16bit.com
Yeah, par for the course in the quest for lower production costs and greater ROI. Right now, production in a lot of sectors is moving in greater numbers to SE Asia and Mexico/Central/South America. As the quality of life improves in those places and labor costs increase, Africa (if they can ever stabilize enough) will most likely become the new center for global cheap consumer goods production. After that, well, we'll either be SOL for our cheap goods or the world will end...whichever comes first.
That's when we move to domestic production with nano-tech used to reassemble the molecules in landfills into new figures.
Does that mean I will be able to pick Joes for cheap when they "fall" of trucks; when I go to visit my folks back home?
I thought they bought the rights for a 3d printer. I see them eventually selling plastic, paint, and printing plans for people to make their own figures.
It's true. I did some digging as well...
Hasbro Transformers Toys To Be Manufactured In India - Transformer World 2005 - TFW2005.COM
blah, blah, blah...
They can produce toys on Mars by White Martians for all I care. What are they doing to improve quality control for all toys not just G.I. Joe and Transformers(&MLP)?
Keep reading: Hasbro Continuing Outsourcing Production from China - Page 2
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