The US company, whose products also include Hot Wheels cars and Fisher-Price toys, has sold "more than hundreds of thousands" of Fashionista Barbie, one of the industry's hot toys this holiday season, Stephanie Cota, senior vice-president of Barbie marketing, told Reuters on January 12. "Sales were off the shelf," Cota said in an interview at Mattel's Hong Kong offices. "Internally, we knew we had something."
The strong sales follow a 2008 overhaul for Mattel's iconic best-seller - Barbie celebrated her 50th birthday last year - aimed at unifying the brand and making the dolls more relevant for today's girls. The changes came after Barbie posted a weak 2008, with sales down 6 percent in the United States and 28 percent overseas in that year's fourth quarter. Cota declined to comment on 2009, except to say that retail Barbie sales for the year were strong. Mattel, whose rivals include Hasbro and Hello Kitty creator Sanrio Co Ltd of Japan, has yet to report its fourth-quarter results. Its net sales for the 2009 third quarter fell 8 percent to $1.8 billion, but beat analysts' expectations.