By Dhanya Skariachan
NEW YORK, Feb 14 (Reuters) – Uno cards for Brazil market
made in Brazil? Check. Barbie dolls for India assembled in
India? Check.
Mattel Inc, the world’s biggest toymaker, has begun
making products for local consumption in those fast-growing
countries in a new bid to hold the line on costs.
The move comes as manufacturers of many stripes are
reevaluating China, which has seen its image as a low-cost
manufacturing hub dented by wage inflation and higher shipping
costs.
“That’s for efficiency reasons. It’s not to say we are not
continuing in China,” Lisa McKnight, SVP Marketing of Mattel’s
North American unit, said in a recent interview on the sidelines
of the 110th American International Toy Fair in New York.
Mattel, home to iconic American brands such as Barbie and
Hot Wheels, currently makes 74 percent of its products in China.
Its other main factories are in Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico and
Thailand.
The El Segundo, California-based toymaker closed its last
factory in the United States, originally part of
the Fisher-Price unit, in 2002.
In Brazil, Mattel makes products including Uno card packs,
puzzles, Fisher-Price Rock-a-Stack toys – brightly colored
plastic rings that babies pile up on a pole – and some other
simple molded products. In India, Mattel is assembling and
packaging Barbie products on a small scale and having some
paper-based products locally made.
A label on a pack of Uno cards Reuters obtained in India
showed it was made for Mattel by Parksons Cartamundi Private
Limited, a local manufacturer based in Daman, a city in the
union territory of Daman & Diu in India.
Toys based on paper, cardboard and cardstock – such as
puzzles and card games – are easy and inexpensive to make
locally, the company said.
Local production helps Mattel get products to store shelves
faster, cut down on import duties and reduce costs associated
with moving products around, the toymaker said.
While the Mattel products made in India and Brazil are not
now being exported, the company did not rule out that
possibility.
“We are always evaluating our manufacturing and sourcing
operations and look for opportunities for efficiencies; however
we have no plans to share at this time,” Alan Hilowitz, a
company spokesman, told Reuters.
(Reporting By Dhanya Skariachan; Editing by Andrew Hay)
