Toei Animation Co., Ltd. finally released their full 2022 fiscal year result (that occurred between April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022) to reveal its best performance to date amid its expanded overseas business which saw sales of video distribution rights increasing significantly in the overseas market. Toei Animation also reported that sales of video distribution rights in its local market, video games (overseas) and merchandising rights have grown for the fiscal year. As such, sales grew 9.51% to 57,020 million yen (≈444.52 million USD) while net income ballooned 13.67% to 12,820 million yen (≈99.92 million USD).
Disc Sales and Film at an All Time Record Low, TV Animation, Overseas Film, and Others Segments Grew Year-on-Year
As for their respective segments, receipts from its movies segment have plunged 55.25% to record its worst since fiscal year 2012 to 452 million yen (≈3.52 million USD) as the impact of COVID-19 had squandered its theatrical releases offering. The company also experienced its weakest disc sales since fiscal year 2012 after a drop of 27.31% to 402 million yen (≈3.13 million USD) due to a reactionary decline despite seeing relatively popular releases such as World Trigger making their debuts for the fiscal year. According to Toei Animation, the slowdown is particularly attributable to the dwindling demand of its One Piece Blu-rays and DVDs, especially One Piece: Stampede which did exceptionally well for the fiscal year 2021. Its Overseas Film segment only noted a small increase of 0.65% to 12,747 million yen (≈99.35 million USD). The stagnated sales were attributed to the fall in deliveries of theatrical works to Saudi Arabia, but the company noted that its video distribution rights in Asia was still strong (thanks to China and Southeast Asia). TV Animation segment and Others segment are both up by 17.63% and 16.60% respectively to 3,302 million yen (≈25.74 million USD) and 5,753 million yen (≈44.84 million USD) due to an increase in number of broadcasts while the latter was due to strong domestic sales of video distribution rights.
Note that throughout the fiscal year, Toei Animation was reportedly to have worked on the following TV Animation titles: Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibouken, One Piece, Tropical-Rouge! Precure, Digimon Adventure:, World Trigger, Fushigi Dagashiya: Zenitendou, Oshiri Tantei 5th Season and some of the latest ones: Delicious Party♡Precure and Digimon Ghost Game. An interesting thing to note here would be that, according to its presentation material (page 12), Toei Animation accounts up to 20% of the total share of the Anime production market in Japan, which its share alone is said to be worth 57 billion yen (≈446.25 million USD) out of the total 274.4 billion yen (≈2.15 billion USD) as of March 2022.
As for its Licensing business, its domestic performance reported its worst drop since fiscal year 2017, down by 9.46% year-on-year to 11,958 million yen (≈93.19 million USD) due to the slowdown of Dragon Ball series video game rights sales that did not meet the momentum observed in fiscal year 2021, but One Piece performed well. The Overseas market on the other hand, witnessed a big 24.94% jump in sales from the fiscal year before to 21,037 million yen (≈163.93 million USD) as the sales of video game rights for the Dragon Ball and One Piece series were strong, and together with the Digimon series, the company witnessed great sales from its merchandising rights.
All in all, its operating income from the Film segment grew 16.60% to 5,753 million yen (≈44.65 million USD) while its operating income from its Licensing segment climbed 10.65% to 15,957 million yen (≈123.84 million USD), both at record figures. For instance, the operating income from its film segment was only 539 million yen (≈4.18 million USD) for the fiscal year 2012, and for Licensing, for that same fiscal year stood at 4,928 million yen (≈38.25 million USD). That would make its performance for the fiscal year 2022 for the two segments 10.67 times and 3.24 times improvement over what it had produced for the fiscal year 2012.
Sales From the Overseas Market Now Accounts to 62.5% of its Total Sales
The fiscal year 2022 witnessed an ever-growing overseas market for Toei Animation as the market continued to project a bigger return year-on-year. Sales from the overseas market grew by 14.72% to 35,674 million yen (≈276.87 million USD) as it outpaced the domestic market which experienced a small recovery of 0.80% to 21,426 million yen (≈166.33 million USD). For some time, up to the fiscal year 2020, it has always been the domestic market being its main driver for sales, but that changed when sales from the overseas market surpassed the domestic market for the first time in the fiscal year 2021.
According to Toei Animation, the reason for the strong performance is partly due China being one of the largest contributors to sales of its video distribution rights, particularly in Quarter 2. The company noted that, apart from great sales garnered through video distribution rights in China, it has seen the sales of merchandising rights in the country to be particularly strong through the One Piece series while in North America, sales of Dragon Ball series and Digimon Adventure series were strong. In addition, the company has seen contracts for new distribution in Southeast Asia grew for the fiscal year, contributing to a stronger overseas sale.
For the breakdown of sales from the overseas market, Asia leads the pack at 17,448 million yen (≈135.42 million USD), 20.55% higher than fiscal year 2021 while the US alone was at 12,008 million yen (≈93.20 million USD), a 11.51% improvement over the previous fiscal year. The two regions account for 48.9% and 33.7% of its total overseas market for the fiscal year. Sales have also grown for other regions, including a 16.11% increase in sales to 1,105 million yen (≈8.57 million USD) for the Latin America region, and for Europe, that would be a gain of 2.11% to 5,112 million yen (≈39.67 million USD).
Great Strides for the One Piece Series as It Slowly Catches up to the Dragon Ball Series
Before we specifically look at the performances of the Dragon Ball series and the One Piece series, let us take a look at the performances by segment for some of the series mentioned in Toei Animation fiscal year 2022 report. For Domestic Licensing, the Dragon Ball series tops the list as Toei Animation biggest earner at 5,487 million yen (≈42.62 million USD) albeit a drop of 15.31% year-on-year, its weakest since fiscal year 2017. One Piece is second at 3,496 million yen (≈27.16 million USD), an upgrade of 2.49% over the year before. Not its best since the series was able to achieve 5,254 million yen (≈40.82 million USD) in sales for the fiscal year 2013. Both Pretty Cure and Sailor Moon dropped 16.85% and 34.10% respectively from the prior fiscal year to 528 million yen (≈4.10 million USD) and 257 million yen (≈1.2 million USD). For Pretty Cure, this is its weakest performance since fiscal year 2016.
As such, the fiscal year 2022 saw Dragon Ball occupying 45.9% of its total Domestic Licensing revenue followed by One Piece at 29.2% while Pretty Cure and Sailor Moon take up 4.4% and 2.1%. Its “Others” titles account to 18.3% of total sales for Domestic Licensing for the fiscal year.
Now, for Overseas Film, it is the One Piece series that tops the list at 4,184 million yen (≈32.55 million USD), up by 16.87% year-on-year whereas the Dragon Ball series is behind at 2,474 million yen (≈19.24 million USD), a 13.10% drop from the fiscal year before and its weakest since fiscal year 2018. Here, Pretty Cure recorded a minor improvement of 0.56% to 715 million yen (≈5.56 million USD), and after being absent from the Top 4 for the prior fiscal year, the Saint Seiya series is back on the list with 844 million yen (≈6.57 million USD) in revenue for the segment.
As a result, One Piece accounts for 32.8% of the total sales for the segment, and Dragon Ball is at 19.4%. Pretty Cure and Digimon both account for 6.6% and 5.6% each of the total sales while Others make up 35.5%.
In terms of Overseas Licensing, this is where Dragon Ball pulls in the majority of its sales, topping the list at 9,328 million yen (≈72.63 million USD), a further improvement of 16.91% over the previous fiscal year, but the biggest gains happened to be for One Piece which is the second largest contributor for the segment at 4,394 million yen (≈34.23 million USD), up by 43.54% year-on-year. Slam Dunk recorded 27.76% fewer sales than the prior fiscal year to 1,673 million yen (≈13.03 million USD) as it retains its 3rd biggest position while Digimon, which was not present in the Top 4 the year before is at 1,532 million yen (≈11.93 million USD).
Dragon Ball is ahead in this segment by a fairly large margin, accounting to 44.3% of the total sales for the segment. One Piece is at 20.9% while Slam Dunk and Digimon are both at 8% and 7.3% respectively. Others occupy only 19.5% of the total sales.
As a whole, Dragon Ball and One Piece are still Toei Animation biggest titles as of fiscal year 2022 with the total sales combined for Dragon Ball at 17,289 million yen (≈135.15 million USD), a slight improvement of 1.23% while One Piece has got a major upgrade of 22.41% to 12,074 million yen (≈94 million USD), which is its best sales so far to date. Note that in fiscal year 2012, One Piece only saw sales worth up to 5,789 million yen (≈45.32 million USD) while Dragon Ball started at a much lower pace for fiscal year 2012 at 1,295 million yen (≈10.12 million USD) before taking over One Piece as Toei Animation’s best title in the fiscal year 2017.
Future Developments
We can also expect sales for Dragon Ball and One Piece to continue to expand for the fiscal year 2023 as the two series will welcome a film each with Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero set to make its debut this coming June 11th while One Piece Film: Red will hit theatres locally on August 6th this year. We can expect further improvement in sales for Slam Dunk, particularly in the Domestic Licensing segment, and if it gets released outside of Japan within the fiscal year 2022, it may also see a boost for its Overseas Film segment. Note that its film is set to release this coming Fall. Other titles to look out for would be Akuma-kun which is a Netflix exclusive title, and it is scheduled to be distributed worldwide, the other would be Kitarou Tanjou: Gegege no Nazo film that is set to air in Fall 2023 (though this title in particular may escape the fiscal year 2023 results).
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero
(June 11, 2022)
One Piece Film: Red
(August 6, 2022)
Slam Dunk Movie
(Fall 2022)
Akuma-kun
(Netflix 2023)
Kitarou Tanjou: Gegege no Nazo
(Fall 2023)
Toei Animation Co., Ltd. is incorporated in Japan with its head office in Nakano-ku. It is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange under ticket symbol: 4816.
Note:
All currency conversion was done at the time of writing. 1 USD ≈ 128 yen
Sources:
Presentation Materials for FY2022
Securities Report for FY2022
Data Sheets for FY2022
Google Charts:
Toei Animation Consolidated Operating Results (As of FY2022)
Toei Animation Consolidated Results by Segment (As of FY2022)
Toei Animation Consolidated Results by Segment (As of FY2022)
Toei Animation Consolidated Results by Segment’s Operating Income (As of FY2022)
Toei Animation Consolidated Results by Segment by Regions (As of FY2022)
Toei Animation Consolidated Results by Segment by Regions (FY2022)
Toei Animation Consolidated Results by Segment Overseas Market (As of FY2022)
Toei Animation Consolidated Results by Segment Overseas Market (FY2022)
Consolidated Sales of Major Titles by Segment (Domestic Licensing as of FY2022)
Consolidated Sales of Major Titles by Segment (Overseas Film as of FY2022)
Consolidated Sales of Major Titles by Segment (Overseas Licensing as of FY2022)
Domestic Licensing Top 4 (As of FY2022)
Overseas Film Top 4 (As of FY2022)
Overseas Licensing Top 4 (As of FY2022)
Consolidated Sales of Dragon Ball vs One Piece (As of FY2022)
Consolidated Sales of One Piece by Segment (As of FY2022)
Consolidated Sales of Dragon Ball by Segment (As of FY2022)
Visualisations:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Consider following my blog by clicking on the button below: Follow Erzat on WordPress.com