Trouble at Hornby

[Ed Kapuscinski]

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/10/hornby-warns-it-will-lose-6m-pounds-this-year

I wonder what this means for Bachmann.

[peteski]

Bachmann is not connected with Hornby but with Graham Farish.

[reinhardtjh]

Get your SW1's and U-boats now while you can.

[peteski]

...and all those nice new releases of Airfix and Pocher models.

[jmarley76]

Boulderdash!

Do they have tea? 

But in all seriousness, it is an interesting article. Hopefully the will make organizational changes and improve. Otherwise, Atlas may buy them too... 

[Rich_S]

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/10/hornby-warns-it-will-lose-6m-pounds-this-year

I wonder what this means for Bachmann.

I wonder if Kader will now purchase Hornby? They already own, Bachmann, Graham Farish and Liliput.

[unittrain]

Oh no my PC U28C  I hope we Wil see these still, and hope they survive this.

[Rossford Yard]

I know most aren't interested in this as I might be, but clicking through those links, and converting to USD, Hornby was/is a $32-35 Million a year company.  Granted, Corgi and some of those other lines might be a large part of that.  However, we rarely get any info as to just how big our toy train manufacturers are in size and dollar volume.

I haven't seen the latest HIA report, but assume the MRR wholesale sales volume will stay steady at the last reported $400 Million in the US.  That would translate to almost $1 Bil in MSRP sticker prices, but probably $800 Million in actual retail sales.

Split that among Athearn, Kato, Atlas, IM, BLMA (for last year's figures) MRC, Broadway, etc. and I would be the bigs are at half the Hornby sales.

On a business related note, the Wall St. Journal had an article a few days back on how model railroad sales have stalled.  So far, its behind a pay wall, so I haven't accessed it.

[unittrain]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/end-of-the-line-for-model-trains-aging-hobbyists-trundle-on-1455157546
Here's the article it kinda doesn't say much as far has real statistics other than the nmra information just a Lot of this dude models this and bla bla this and that. I know several modelers me included that aren't nmra members and are under 50.

[conrail98]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/end-of-the-line-for-model-trains-aging-hobbyists-trundle-on-1455157546
Here's the article it kinda doesn't say much as far has real statistics other than the nmra information just a Lot of this dude models this and bla bla this and that.

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=38235.0

[Rich_S]

I know most aren't interested in this as I might be, but clicking through those links, and converting to USD, Hornby was/is a $32-35 Million a year company.  Granted, Corgi and some of those other lines might be a large part of that.  However, we rarely get any info as to just how big our toy train manufacturers are in size and dollar volume.

I haven't seen the latest HIA report, but assume the MRR wholesale sales volume will stay steady at the last reported $400 Million in the US.  That would translate to almost $1 Bil in MSRP sticker prices, but probably $800 Million in actual retail sales.

Split that among Athearn, Kato, Atlas, IM, BLMA (for last year's figures) MRC, Broadway, etc. and I would be the bigs are at half the Hornby sales.

On a business related note, the Wall St. Journal had an article a few days back on how model railroad sales have stalled.  So far, its behind a pay wall, so I haven't accessed it.

Right from the "About" page on their web site,

Kader is, by volume, the largest manufacturer of Model Railways in the world.

One web site quoted Kader as grossing $850,000,000. But one thing you have to take into account, this is for worldwide sales.

[PAL_Houston]

No one would sneeze at going-on to a $1B sales volume.
Question is whether there is enough spread, and enough to spread-around, going forward?
Things change, you know?  And N-scale is only an itty-bitty part of this.

[Rossford Yard]

Right from the "About" page on their web site,One web site quoted Kader as grossing $850,000,000. But one thing you have to take into account, this is for worldwide sales.

That sounds about right.  If the US is $425B at wholesale, Europe would be about equal, and Asia maybe 50% as much.  Of course, we would have to know what cut the mfgs. make on their sub-contractors, and perhaps, the exchange rates in place at the time that quote was made.