(Yicai Global) Feb. 28 -- Hasbro's Transformers toys are losing clients in China due to poor quality after production was shifted to Vietnam, according to a toy seller.

Basically all Transformers action figures sold in China are not made in China, a Shanghai toy store owner surnamed Tai said to Yicai Global recently. "We think Hasbro’s products are a failure but Hasbro does not think so and believes its products are successful because it controls costs."

Last October, Hasbro said it intends to cut annual costs by USD250 million to USD300 million by December 2025. But belt-tightening is not going unnoticed by clients. The American owner of brands My Little Pony and Peppa Pig is slowly losing touch in China as Transformers that cost hundreds or even over CNY1,000 (USD144) are getting bad comments online due to mismatching parts or sloppy finishing. Hasbro’s Tmall flagship store sells about 30 Transformers per month but the comments area is filled with complaints.

Before 2018, Pawtucket-based Hasbro made most of its toys in southern China's Guangdong province but it said that it intends to move production to India and Vietnam in 2019. As of late 2020, some 45 percent of the firm's foundry-made products were produced outside of China. A year later, the share had risen to 48 percent.

At Tai's store, a Transformers box shows the toy was made in Vietnam by GFT Vietnam. GFT, a Hong Kong-headquartered toymaker, is the second-largest toymaker in Vietnam with a nearly 16 percent market share. Besides Hasbro, it also produces toys for Mattel, Tomy, and Spin Master. GFT started making products in Vietnam in 2007 to leverage the local manufacturing sector's advantages, "especially the lower labor cost and improving transport infrastructure," the firm said in its prospectus in 2021.

Transformers, released nearly 40 years ago, still attract Chinese consumers who were born in the 1980s and 90s. However, the target group is aging."We will no longer play with Transformers toys when we are in our fifties and sixties, so there will be no market for such toys within 10 years," Tai predicted.

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi