Mattel’s financial numbers for Q4 (the hliday quarter was released and numbers were not so good) …

Overall, Mattel’s profit for the quarter of $176m was 46 per cent down on the same period in 2007, and missed forecasts from Wall Street analysts.

The collapse of Woolworths in the UK was one of the factors cited by Robert Eckert, Mattel chief executive, as he unveiled the gloomy results yesterday.

“Toy retailers weren’t immune to the economic downturn, with significant toy sellers in the US, UK, Mexico and other major markets either closing their doors or entering bankruptcy, against that backdrop, we underperformed for the quarter, and ultimately the year, due to a combination of lackluster sales, lower gross margin and higher expenses.”

Eckert said the company’s focus in 2009 will be “cost and spending reductions.”

“Our goal in 2009 is to improve the profitability of the business by looking at all areas, from H.R. to marketing and all functions in between, with the relentless pursuit of cost reductions including reducing the number of underperforming stock-keeping units and tightening our infrastructure as we strive to improve efficiencies,” Eckert said.

“Sales of Barbie, who turns 50 this year, dropped 21 percent and Hot Wheels sales declined 22 percent.”

Here are the breakdown with financial statements but in regards to CARS, it’s all folded into the Entertainment Division, Boys so it’s hard to tell what the exact numbers are especially since the division included licensed toys such as KUNG FU PANDA & SPEED RACER in 2008 … so whatever increase CARS had over YTD 2007 – maybe 35% over 2007, 50%? some or most was all eaten by the non-success of KUNG FU PANDA and the eat-my-shorts SPEED RACER numbers …

You can read the entire transcript of the conference call here at SEEKING ALPHA.

Quotes related to the CARS property? They appear separately within the call and yes, kind of contradictory …

“The decline in sales worldwide was driven primarily by declines in the sales of the Cars property, interactive games, and Radica, partially offset by growth in Batman: The Dark Knight.”

And later in the call …

“Cars continues to be a good property. It’s not as big as it was, but it’s now three years since the movie and it’s clearly an evergreen property like Toy Story’s an evergreen property. Kung Fu and Speed Racer were not big toy properties.”

Other relevant info from different sources …

The U.S. market for toy vehicles was $2.3 Billion in 2008 – while the global market of Hot Wheels is around $1 billion US … not sure what the US-International split is but 70-30? I would imagine CARS is at least a third of the size of Hot Wheels now … and as noted, 35 designers create 300 diecast designs for Hot Wheels line – I think the entire CARS design team is 4 people? How many CARS did they crank out last year – 80? 100? CARS.

Adult collectors make up 25% of the market for Hot Wheels …

As for CARS & the its sales numbers … all I can say is …

GOLDEN AGE OF CARS – TIN AGE OF CARS DISTRIBUTION