Funko, Inc. (FNKO) 2026 Q2 法說會逐字稿

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  • Unidentified Participant

  • Hi, everyone. I'm here with Josh and Eve, and we're here at San Diego Comic Con. It seems like the perfect place to have this discussion about Funko and his business because so much. Of Funko is here and has been here for the past 20 years.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • Yeah, I mean, I often think there wouldn't be the Funko that exists today without Comic-Con, so it's a massive highlight of the year for us. We're excited you were able to join us and excited to take a little bit of a walk around it a bit here.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Well, I've been in your booth several times several years. But before we get into the nitty-gritty, that's something I want to talk about because you've been here for 20 years. The booth has grown, the product has grown, the fandom has grown. So just what is that general feeling? Does this feel like a celebration when you. Come to San Diego every year.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • It does. You'll see the folks who work in our booth are largely fans from all over the world who are taking time off of work and out of their lives to come and hang out here and help interact. It's also a great way for just these community of fans from all across the country and the world to come and celebrate Funko, experience the brand, buy some incredibly coveted limited edition products. It's flattering and humbling and wild to see the lines. At our booth for people who are here to kind of get the exclusive product you can only get here at Comic Con.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Absolutely. Well, it's obviously great to see this fandom that happens here, but I've seen those exclusives get off those shelves, so I know some finances happen here as well. So let's get into that. How has this quarter been for Funko?

  • Yves Lependeven - Chief Financial Officer

  • Yep. Numbers have been great, it's really a reflection of our Make Culture POP! strategy gaining traction. We're really pleased to report sales were up 7% in the quarter, that's building on the growth from Q1. For the first half of the year, we were up 6%. The good news is it wasn't really one product or region or IP, it was really broad based. In the U.S., we were up 3%, in Europe we were up 19%, from a product perspective, our core collectibles were up 9%. Although Loungefly was down 2%, it was an improving trend from what we saw in Q1, we're really pleased with the better SKU productivity.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Very nice. I'm going to say that increase in the U.S. About 0.045%. That might just be me.

  • But no, that's great to hear. So Josh, what are some highlights of this quarter with FunCo?

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • Well, I mean, Eve mentioned the momentum that we're seeing and I think a big part of that is we've talked a lot about the Make Culture Pop strategy and I think we're really seeing that go from strategy to execution and take form. It's really about culture sensing and creating demand across the entertainment and pop culture landscape, creativity, giving it form in products and then commerce putting it in fans' hands all over the world.

  • On the culture side, it's really about how we get faster at sensing what's happening and then turning that into products. So last two quick things I'll mention is. Creativity on the product side. We're going to take a walk around in a little bit and you're going to get to see our brand new pop mystery platform and that's really about taking what people love about pop and just turning it into kind of a broader experience and a new product format. I'm so excited to show you how that's about to materialize. It's great to sort of see that make culture pop strategy coming together and really moving from idea to execution in the quarter.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Yeah and it's interesting because it seems like you obviously there's some. Franchises you're ready and prepared for, like Avengers Doomsday, for example, or something like that. But then you have these ones you've got to predict the popularity. And then you have an obsession, or like last year in K-pop Demon Hunters, where it's like, boom, this explosion out of nowhere. How do we jump on that as fast as possible? So is that a constant turning strategy between predicting versus following up?

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • It is. And I think because we can't predict those things, what we really have to do is build this repeatable offense. So having sort of.

  • Teams in place that are really ready very quickly to make the licensing deals, the capacity internally to design the products and manufacture them and get them to shelves and then those retail relationships either with wholesale partners or our own D2C channel to get those out to consumers quickly. And I think the magic for us is that we've really sort of H1d that engine of. Sensing demand, turning it into products and getting into our fans' hands in a really repeatable way and we're starting to see that happen more and more.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • You only have to do that with movies, television, sports, anime.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • Exactly.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • A video game. Exactly.

  • Culture in general. Yeah. And maybe Jimothy, the raccoon that's taking the world by storm right now.

  • Well, should we go take a look at,I think we should. I'm very excited to see what you have here on the show for us.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • All right, great. Let's. Let's go check it out after you.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • All right, let's check out what's over here.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • So this is Husnal, our Chief Product Officer.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Hi Husnal, nice to meet you, pleasure. All right, so obviously got some great products here, but there's a special one here. Oh yes. Can you tell us about that?

  • Husnal Shah - Chief Product Officer

  • Yes, at San Diego Comic-Con over here, we are launching our Bob Mystery line.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • And I see this is the Flora pack right here.

  • Husnal Shah - Chief Product Officer

  • Yes, this is the Flora pack.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Okay, so tell us about Flora.

  • Husnal Shah - Chief Product Officer

  • Flora is a plant line that we started off as. A regular standard form and now we've made it into a mystery collection piece and it is absolutely fabulous.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • I love that and it seems here that you can get one of six possible ones in a common.

  • Husnal Shah - Chief Product Officer

  • So each drop has six commons with varying cards and then we have the chase as well as the global one upon chase which is. Which is what differentiates us from the market and it's extremely exciting.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Did you say one of one? One of one. There's only one of these.

  • Husnal Shah - Chief Product Officer

  • Only one of these and imagine if you're a fan with the one.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Oh my gosh, that's wow. Well, I gotta see which one is inside, right? Let's open it. Okay, what if this is the worldwide case? Alright, let's open this one up.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • Let's see.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • It's pretty, I like that. Oh, it's a tool.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • Not the one of one, but it's not.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • The one of one, but I still like that.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • And what I think is great, and we're obviously revealing this here at Comic Con, but there's other sort of licensing partners. This, as you mentioned, is original IP. Yes. We've created. And then of course, we're also launching with some of the biggest IP in the world as well.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Like, Purchase?

  • Husnal Shah - Chief Product Officer

  • With One Piece, as well as with the Warner Brothers with the Horror of the Line.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • And speaking of Warner Brothers Horror, One Piece, and Flora. Have a little bit of an activation going over here, right?

  • Husnal Shah - Chief Product Officer

  • And we are giving away the flora line in that activation, so you might want to go check it out.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • I think I do want to check it out.

  • Let's see what this is here. Oh, got a knock.

  • Flora. Flora Oh, hey.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • Audrey, this is Nic, our Head of Artific and Brad.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Oh, nice to meet you. Come in. Oh my gosh. Wow, this is beautiful.

  • Nik Rupp - Senior Vice President, Brand and Marketing

  • Welcome to the Pop Flora Greenhouse.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Tell me about what it's like to create experiences for people at San Diego Comic Con when it comes to Funko. Obviously, they're getting the pops, but you're giving a more immersive experience in the brand, right?

  • Nik Rupp - Senior Vice President, Brand and Marketing

  • A 100%. This is such a special opportunity to be at San Diego Comic Con. We really consider this sort of. Our World Cup, our Super Bowl all in one. It just provides us an amazing opportunity to be on the ground with our fans. As part of the launch of Pop Mystery, we created these mystery game rooms. This is the Pop Flora Greenhouse, and we really wanted to bring our own. And our fandom to life. This isn't just a banner ad, this isn't a shelf display, this is a greenhouse that you can stand in to experience this world yourself.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • I really like that because it almost like brings more into the fandom when you're able to do some kind of experience along with the product.

  • Nik Rupp - Senior Vice President, Brand and Marketing

  • 100%.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Now let's see some more stuff here. Let's get you out of here.

  • Nik Rupp - Senior Vice President, Brand and Marketing

  • Thank you for stopping by.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Yes, this is really cool. We also have a one-piece one here, WBR and K-Pop Demon Hunters. Thanks again, Nick. That was really cool.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • All right, let's take a look around this way.

  • Obviously, we talked about this earlier, but selling a lot of exclusive products that you can only get here, obviously kind of massive lines of people, which is like super humbling. And look, I think what you experienced and saw over. In the mystery room is sort of our first step into doing something that's more experiential. And then one of the most compelling experiences that we've become known for both online and soon rolling out into some wholesale partners is the Pop Yourself experience.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • I've been able to do that.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • With Funko Hollywood stores. You can do it at the Hollywood store.

  • There's a couple stores we'll announce soon where you'll be able to start doing it as well. You can do it at the Inner Miami Stadium with the football club there. And then of course here, celebrating the upcoming launch of Spider-Man brand new day, we have a great pop-yourself experience as well here at Comic Con.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • You tell me I can pop myself a Spider-Man right now.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • You sure can. A limited edition, you can only get it here. But obviously it's sort of a version of our kiosk experience. Where you can pick your body type, your skin tone, your hair, your clothes, and like I said, some very specific Spidey outfits that you can only get here at Comic Con. All right, you want to give it a try?

  • Unidentified Participant

  • I have to pop myself here. Okay, let me start building. So you said this is an exclusive Spiderman brand new day, pop yourself, right?

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • Exclusive only here to Comic Con.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • All right, let me pick my body type here.

  • Nice. Okay, let's go with some skin tone. Love that.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • Yeah, you get to really customize it here. Your lashes, your hair.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Lots of different hairstyles.

  • Oh, there we go. This looks like me.

  • I like that. I like that. Very nice. Gotta do the glasses. Glad you have some glasses options.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • It's your trademark.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Yeah, there we go. Okay.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • Yes, and then some exclusive accessories as well.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • So we got a VIP badge. Perfect for Spider-Man going to Comic-Con. All right. You can hold the mask. I like it, yes.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • And.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Then we also got some web shooting here. All right, I'm going to go with that mask. And then I can pick another one, right? Yeah, let's definitely do the webs.

  • Very nice. What's really cool, I see you have a little Hulk here. Is that also it's going to fit here? It comes with a BittiPop Hulk. That's awesome all right so I get a biddy pop Hulk with my Spider-Man outfit here all right I got to package that pop look at that wow it's me in the Spider-Man outfit there's the web shooting there's the mask there's the exclusive Hulk biddy pop in there all. That is great. And that's a really cool experience to come here if you're excited for Spider-Man, Brady Dave, or excited for Pop Yourself, and you get to have this experience right here at San Diego Comic-Con.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • And obviously, the ability to create these sort of geo-specific experiences is something that will start to roll out and test later this year with some retail partners. So you can imagine something like this starting to kind of pop up in other parts of the world and really create something unique and specific to a location.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • That's interesting, because that means you could do this at the Funko stores. But now you're saying there might be other places to do this too yeah all right stay tuned for that all?

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • Right let's go let's let's check out the next part of the booth here all right all right let's go by the the Mondo booth oh yes I know now as you know like Mondo sort of our. Premium collector toy line. Yeah, these guys are amazing artists.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • I've got some figures in my home right now.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • Okay, great. And we're going to kind of cut through the crowds here.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Hey, how's it going, man? Good to see you. Okay, I am a huge Ninja Turtles fan, so I'm very excited about what's going on here.

  • Nik Rupp - Senior Vice President, Brand and Marketing

  • Yes, this is the TMNT Mondoverse where our partnership with Paramount has given us permission and access to create our own. What if scenario sequel story to the 90s film so we're bringing in all the characters and whimsy and wildness of the comics video games and cartoons into this real world gritty like a man in a suit vibe that the movies have Paramount has given us the blessing to reimagine all of the character history so for example we're introducing new versions of the punk frogs as kid brothers that Mikey finds in the sewers. And that's the kind of story expansion that we're able to do with a Mondo versus our sandbox.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • And I was curious about that because you have Funko and Mondo under the same roof, but obviously you're doing different types of products. Have you seen this interesting transition in any kind of way from Funko to Mondo as far as getting figures more detailed?

  • Nik Rupp - Senior Vice President, Brand and Marketing

  • It's like we have the artists in-house to do all the technique, right? What we get from Funko is the support, the credibility, and the doors being blasted open for us to get licenses. Relationships that we otherwise might not be able to get. So it's really an amazing pairing that creates another collectible through line. So you might have been collecting Funko pops for a long time and you have a beautiful collection of them and you're just like, I'm a Turtles guy. I got all the Turtles pops, but I also want a realistic 1/6 scale so you can stay in-house at Funko through Mondo and have a really diverse collection.

  • Thank you for stopping by man. We're so proud of it. I can't wait to show you guys more.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • This is awesome man. Oh my gosh. So much nostalgia. Too man real ghostbusters master universe street shark yes all right one more one more stop one more stop on the tour all right we've seen the boots we see the fans having a wonderful time buying the pops enjoying the experiences this feels like. Like a good out to go on in San Diego.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • It does, and we're in the big pop mystery box. I think the mystery is going to be where we end up after this box closes.

  • Yves Lependeven - Chief Financial Officer

  • But for now, should we go and take some investor questions?

  • Unidentified Participant

  • I think we should. Thank you so much. You ruined the mystery.

  • Oh, I just remembered. They told me that one exclusive IP is coming up soon. It's going to be --

  • Well, that was fast. One minute we're dodging crowds at Comic-Con and next we're here in the Funko office. And sometimes, Josh, you made it all the way to London.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • I am. I'm across the pond spending some time with our EMEA team and partners, but it's a late night, but excited to be reunited with you here live.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Absolutely. The magic mystery box can do multiple locations, apparently, with multiple drop-offs.

  • So now we've shared all the fun stuff at Comic-Con, Eve, can you tell us a little bit more about the financials?

  • Yves Lependeven - Chief Financial Officer

  • Sure, I'd be happy to. Like I mentioned earlier, sales were up 7% in Q2 and 6% in the first half. In addition to that, we reported a gross margin of 56.6% compared to 32.1% last year. To be clear, our Q2 gross margin benefited from the recognition of a $25 million credit that was related to the expected tariff refunds and release of accrued tariffs. Just for sake of comparison to our guidance range of 42%-44%, our gross margin normalized for that $25 million credit was 44.4%, which was still a record high for Funko. SG&A expenses improved as a percentage of sales by over 400 basis points compared to last year. Finally, adjusted EBITDA was $40.9 million compared to negative adjusted EBITDA of $16.5 million last year.

  • Excluding that tariff-related benefit, we delivered adjusted EBITDA of $15 million, well above our guidance range. I'd also like to highlight that in the quarter, we executed a sale of our IEEPA tariff claims, a total of $22 million for proceeds of $19 million. We used that to pay down debt by a total of $15 million, making more progress on deleveraging our balance sheet.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • That sounds like great results. And what about the outlook?

  • Yves Lependeven - Chief Financial Officer

  • Yeah, so for the outlook, we're reiterating our net sales guidance flat to up 3% and we're raising our adjusted EBITDA guidance to $100 to $110 million. And that raise is driven by, again, that $25 million tariff credit from Q2 as well as $5 million from improved profitability.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • That's great. Thank you, Yves. Now, Josh, what can investors expect in the second. Of the year from Funco.

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • Well, I mean, look, I think the results that you just talked about this quarter really highlight the model that we're building, sensing demand earlier, creating more repeatable ways to sort of take that demand and create products that can scale selectively through the right retail channels around the world.

  • Look, I think in the second-half, our consolidated sales will reflect more of a normalized. Year-over-year shipment comparison. And I think we'll continue to be prudent just sort of given some of the broader consumer environment that's out there. And also just to kind of double back on one of the things Eve mentioned earlier about Loungefly and the SKU reductions that we've discussed. Now we've made some meaningful progress in that area. I definitely would not declare the work there finished. We have an exciting plan, but still a ways to go. But the encouraging signal in Q2 was that, as Eve said, sales were down. With approximately 50% fewer SKUs, so really seeing that increased productivity.

  • For the remainder of the year, importantly, I think the headline is that we definitely expect the core collectibles to continue growing in the second-half. So when you step back from it, the core is growing, lounge fly is becoming healthier. Our underlying earnings power is improving and Q2 is really a strong and early proof point that everything we've talked about in the make culture pop strategy is underway and our focus is now just about consistent execution.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Nice. And what are you getting excited for for the rest of the year, particularly in terms of how the way the company is evolving?

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • Well, I mean, there's a lot to choose from that I'm super excited about. I guess. A couple of things that I would highlight, first overall is just speed, I've talked about this a lot, how do we make sure that we're part of these really great cultural or entertainment moments while they're happening and really the key to speed is being able to sort of sense demand earlier and respond quickly and hopefully in some cases with even less inventory exposure. So one thing I've mentioned a couple of times, but excited to kind of more formally announce now, we formalized a partnership with HP on the additive manufacturing front.

  • This is part of our hyper strike strategy, which means we're able to create products in a matter of weeks instead of months or sometimes years that go into the traditional manufacturing process. We've already sort of. Launched our first product with this partnership at Fanatics Fest a couple of weeks ago. We did a really awesome mashup between WWE and the Garbage Pail Kids. The products sold out at Fanatics Fest. They're selling for multiples more than what we originally sold them for on eBay. So we're really excited to work with. With HP on that front. By the way, our normal quick strike offerings from a speed standpoint has also continued to be off and running. We had pre-orders for heated rivalry, off-campus and obsession. So a lot of like surprise entertainment hits out there that we've been able to get it after pretty quickly, including. Pre-order when the Knicks won the NBA championships, the night that they won, we went live with a championship five-pack. So we're really kind of building that repeatable speed capability.

  • The second thing I'll mention is we actually are announcing today that we're hiring a new Chief Commercial Officer. It's a role that we've had open for a little bit now. Kristin Hamilton, she joins us most recently from Crunchyroll, where she was Senior Vice President, Head of Global E-commerce and Direct to Consumer. Obviously excited about her commercial experience there and her experience in the anime world, which is obviously a huge fandom for us. Before Crunchyroll, she spent about 15 years at Hasbro across a ton of different leadership roles. Global e-commerce, consumer product strategy, transformation, brand management, marketing. She's done a ton there. She officially starts on August 24th. And so I guess that's another big exciting thing for me in the second-half of the year.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • All right. Well, the second-half is looking promising. Nice. So we're going to take some questions from some analysts right now. First one is from Eric Wold at Texas Capital. How would you characterize the level of wholesale order demand in the third quarter of 2026 into the upcoming holiday season?

  • Yves Lependeven - Chief Financial Officer

  • Sure. So I'll take that one. I think what we're seeing this year, we continue to have about three or four months visibility with our wholesale customers placing orders. I would say compared to last year, we're seeing a return of a little bit more normalized seasonality like Josh mentioned.

  • Last year, Q2 was pretty disrupted. Post Liberation Day announcement. And then there was an element of catching up with people's orders in Q3 and into Q4. This year, obviously, we're shipping orders as our customers want them. We're seeing great POS trends in our wholesale channel globally. Our POS sales were up 6% year over year. So again, always looking for that balance between sell-in and sell-through, which we saw in Q2. By all the metrics that we gauge, the business is healthy, inventory and the channel is healthy and we see that there's a good demand from our wholesale partners and from our end customers as well.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Another question, what are you seeing from your major retail partners around shelf space allocation in recent quarters and into the holiday season and what categories are likely to see the most benefit from those gains?

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • Well, look, I think I'll start off just kind of by the fact that I'm here in Europe and have been spending some time with our European retailers. We've secured extra diorama displays in about 350 stores across Smiths, which is one of the most preeminent toy retailers in Europe and certainly even, I would say, in the worlHMV, Gift Universe, a bunch of independent retailers. And look, those are sort of like fully designed kind of built out displays that are really showcase our product out of the packaging on shelves. We're also seeing increase some end cap displays at Smith's for Biddy Pop.

  • If you walk around the city right now, we have pretty high profile windows at Hemley's and other iconic. Toy retailer that sort of is a Disney and Funko collaboration that's really giving us a lot of high visibility and like prime tourist destinations. And actually right now even we have another partnership across Sony, Disney with HMV on a big Spider-Man activation at HMV Oxford Street.So look, things like Bitty Pop have continued to lead to incremental shelf space for us, things like Spider-Man have led to incremental placement with like pallet trains at Walmart, so I think alongside these big entertainment releases and alongside. All of our new and growing product lines, we're seeing it generate incremental shelf space for us as we detail.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Nice. I look forward to seeing people post some photos with the photo ops with all those displays there. Alright, well now we have some questions from McKeegan Cox at DA Davidson. In regards to the strong entertainment slate we have had this year, which franchises or categories are generating the strongest demand? Any highlights this quarter and what properties are you most excited for in the second-half of the year?

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • Well, thank you, Keegan, for the question.

  • Look, I mean, for us, obviously, a strong content slate always helps and we knew going into this year, we suspected that there would be some big hits and I think you're really seeing that in box office attendance and box office records overall. But we have a pretty first, I'll just say like broad base across fandoms, we've seen momentum for us across anime, gaming, obviously theatrical, sports and some of our own programs.

  • I'll remind everyone in this quarter, I think our TOP10 franchises and programs represented about 32%. Of Q2 sales. So our business is not necessarily dependent on like any one property, but they obviously help. So Mando Grogu was great for us, Toy Story 5, which was a massive hit for Disney, also doing really well for us. You saw our Spider-Man brand new day activation at Comic-Con. That has recently proven to be huge for us, and we're really glad that we made a bet on that film early on. And then couldn't be more excited for Avengers: Doomsday and what the Russo brothers and Marvel and Disney are going to kind of bring to screens at the end of the year.

  • But look, beyond that, One Piece and pokémon and sort of the anime and gaming space continue to be huge. Sports delivered. I mentioned I mean, the excitement around the Knicks was. Was somewhat unprecedented for us in this sort of, certainly in the world of NBA championships compared to past seasons. The excitement around the World Cup I think was palpable and reflected in some strong sales for us. And then look, I have to just sort of mention it again on the quick strike front, but you have movies like Obsession. Which kind of came from out of nowhere as a surprise and was a major record-setting box office. And so we were able to very quickly go on pre-sale for that film along with things like Heated Rivalry and Off Campus. And I'll even say a personal favorite of mine in this past quarter, a great line of products celebrating the Spice Girls. And I'm not just saying that because I'm over in the UK right now. I would have said that if I were in America as well. But across Loungefly and Funko, a dream come true, H1stly. To be able to collaborate with those folks. So a pretty broad representation of both franchises, Keegan.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • All right. Save me a male beef Funko Pop. I need that.

  • All right. Inputs and takes on the guidance. What are the assumptions that you get to the high and low ends of your guidance? Have you seen any impact from higher input costs like freight?

  • Yves Lependeven - Chief Financial Officer

  • Sure. So I would start by to the upside. Especially on sales, I mentioned our order book visibility in Q3, so we feel good about that. Obviously then the holiday period in Q4, we have a bit less visibility too, but we're excited about the content slate. I think obviously any upside would depend on continued sell-through performance. We're hoping the consumer stays resilient through the holiday period.

  • To the downside,I would call out tariffs. Obviously, we factored in the latest announced tariffs that are in effect of 10% to 12%. But for everyone who's following the news, there can continue to be surprises on that front. So again, chose to be prudent within our gross margin guidance in particular. And then as far as freight costs or raw materials costs.

  • We're cautiously optimistic, but obviously any kind of, higher oil prices and things like that could negatively impact us as well.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Understood. All right. Here's some questions from Steven Laczek at Goldman Sachs. So Funko noted that point of sale tailwinds from the first quarter entertainment slate carried into early second quarter. Did this positive trend continued through the remainder of the quarter and what gives management confidence that these trends are sustainable through 2026?

  • Yves Lependeven - Chief Financial Officer

  • Sure. I mean, I'll start with the trends that we saw in Q2. So again, I mentioned in the wholesale channel, 6% growth in units year-over-year in POS sales. For the year-to-date, it's 9% growth.

  • And again, for the year-to-date in the US, up mid-single-digit. In Europe, slightly over 20% POS growth. So it's a really strong trend. We're loving to see that momentum. I believe based on the content slate and some of the products that we have coming up in the lineup that we should see that trends continue. And that's kind of what we factored into our guidance.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • Okay. Now, to what extent does management expect new formats like Biddy Pop Mystery, and the sports-related launches to be revenue contributors in 2026? And what does management view as the key growth levers for FunCo in 2026 and beyond outside of the core Pop products?

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • Well, I'll jump in. I mean, I think first on Pop Mystery, it's a little bit too early to sort of size that one responsibly. But what I think is most important about it and I think kind of signals a lot of what we've been talking about as part of our strategy is that it's just sort of the platform potential of it. So if you think about Pop Mystery just as another dimension and extension of. The core POP product. It can really extend across like any entertainment franchise, sports, we're doing it with our own IP that you saw sort of down at Comic Con with the floor line. It can go in multiple channels, markets around the world, I would say, sort of that blind box craze is showing no signs of slowing down. And for us, I think it's a unique way that kind of encourages what our fans have always loved, that thrill of the chase, discovery, and then that sort of motivation for repeat participation. They want to try and seek out that one specific item that they love. We'll keep a close eye on sort of the initial launch and judge sell-through and reorders and consumer behavior and scale based on that. But I'd say from a licensed or standpoint, we have like a pretty exciting and awesome lineup of Pop Mystery products going all the way through next year. So I am feeling encouraged about that one. And then you mentioned sort of steven, your question sort of Biddy is just sort of another example that I mentioned we're seeing incremental placement now at Smith's around Europe.

  • Another extension of what people love about pop and what makes it iconic, but it's sort of it's becoming its own platform, appealing to a slightly different consumer, getting us incremental placement. We'll continue to look at new ways to dimensionalize pop. We have a few different. Ideas that are in development that will roll out end of this year and early next year. And then, look, H1stly, there's about, I would say, half a dozen totally brand new formats that we have in development that will start to roll out early next year and beyond. And the idea with all of those is trying to establish new platforms for our fans to engage, sort of capitalizing on what we know best around sort of culture and our licensor relationships. And being part of these iconic entertainment and cultural moments, but in new and exciting ways that I think hopefully will set the stage for hopefully the next pop franchise to come.

  • Unidentified Participant

  • All right. Well, we'll look forward to all of that. I definitely look forward to seeing who gets a one-of-one worldwide chase out there with these mystery pops. All right. Well, that's all the time we have for questions for today. Even Josh, thank you so much for all your information about the success as well as how you handle certain challenges. So Josh, are there any thoughts before we let everyone?

  • Josh Simon - Chief Executive Officer and Director

  • Yes. Well, first of all, thank you for being with us down at Comic-Con and in the office there in Burbank.

  • And look, for me, I would just say the financial highlights that this quarter shows us is really early evidence that the Make Culture Pop strategy is beginning to take hold. And it's really becoming a more deliberate and disciplined growth engine for us. Ultimately, I think we're getting better at sensing where fan demand is coming from, moving faster to turn those signals into distinctive products and in repeatable ways and building platforms like I was just talking about, and then scaling them through channels all over the world. So look, this quarter, I think, was an early proof point, not the end of the work. But I think the growth in SKU productivity and certainly that record. Underlying gross margin gives us confidence that we're on the right track.

  • And look, other than that, I just want to say thank you to our shareholders for your continued confidence. Most importantly, thank you to our fans for showing up in the way that you always do. I loved sort of the energy in everyone who made their way down to Comic Con this year. I love talking with everyone and hearing their ideas. It's just an awesome reminder of why we do this. And we're certainly excited for the rest of the year. So I'll just say again, Andre, thanks to everyone for joining us, and we will see you all next quarter.