Sales up +50% and royalty income up +245% for the first half of the year.
The Smiley Company is enjoying a new wave of success in the UK, with sales up +50% and royalty income up +245% for the first half of 2018, against the same period 2017.
Smiley also reported today that over one million product units have been sold in the UK at retail in Q1 and Q2 2018.
Smiley explained to The Source that it has started taking a more ‘holistic’ approach to the UK market and have signed deals with new licensees across multiple categories.
These include Kinnerton (confectionery), Roy Lowe & Sons (socks & hosiery), Jumini (wooden toys), Tikiboo (athleisure), Tache (greeting cards), the Hut Group (online gifting), Moonpig (personalisation) and Reliable Source (arts and crafts).
“It’s great news for the business and we are now seeing the rewards from our investment and hard work in the UK market over the last two years,” said Daniel McGeehan, Smiley’s UK brand director. “These results are also attributable to the continued growth of our apparel and kids businesses and our ability to allow partners to grow by leveraging Smiley’s expert category management teams and marketing resources.”
With apparel and nightwear partners such as Global Brands Group, Poetic Brands and Fashion UK growing strongly during the first two quarters last year, UK-based licensees are also benefitting from Smiley’s brand segmentation model, says Daniel.
He continued: “Our new segmentation model is allowing us to work with partners in increasing their offer, creating multiple ranges for babies, young kids, older kids and young adults across both genders and each with their own specific design direction.”
Smiley’s appeal with kids is also continuing to drive increased sales across categories with its more established partners, such as Blueprint Collections launching a new range of back to school supplies at B&M in Q3.
Meantime, Scholastic’s Smiley publishing programme is growing through the publishing house’s own Back to School clubs. Finally, M&Co has launched a SmileyWorld collection at retail which included bespoke POS and shop window activations.
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