Zhang Yuchen, general manager of Hasbro China, expects 2017 to be a big year for Transformers. Provided to China Daily

The Transformers may have been around for more than three decades, but Zhang Yuchen, general manager of Hasbro China, the parent company of the brand, believes that the popularity of the iconic toy figures are just about to hit its peak, especially with four Transformers films set to hit the silver screens by 2025.

Zhang is optimistic that with the surge in nostalgia for the toys and the growing profitability of selling peripheral products from a movie in China, 2017 could very well be “the year of Transformers”.

“It’s been very exciting because over the last decade, the movie universe has given old fans something new and brought in a whole new generation of Transformers fans. That is probably one of the biggest forces driving Transformers in China,” said Zhang.

“We now expect to see explosive growth in the sale of Transformers products in China with the upcoming series of movies,” he added.

Looking back, Transformers has enjoyed an unparalleled popularity in China since 1988 when it became the first Western animation to be aired in the country.

Many adults today who experienced their childhood during those times would probably cite the 98-episode show being one of the main reasons why they would head straight home after school.

While die-hard fans of the original animation have been collecting Transformers toys and fiction books for decades, it was not until 2007 — the year the first Transformers movie was shown in China — that the toys saw a boost in popularity and sales figures.

In 2008, Hasbro, the world leader in toys, opened its first office in China and officially started to promote Transformers as well as other brands like My Little Pony.

In the following years, the visibility of the brand continued to reach new heights. The second installment of the movie franchise, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen broke the 12-year box office record set by Titanic to become the most-watched foreign movie in China.

In 2014, the fourth movie, Transformers: Age of Extinction, generated 300 million yuan ($45 million) in China, contributing to almost one-third of the global revenue. The upcoming one in the franchise, Transformers: The Last Knight, is scheduled to be released in 2017.

To tap into Transformers’ growing popularity in China, an online flagship store was recently set up on Chinese e-commerce platform Tmall, in conjunction with the Cybertron Con in Shanghai.

Consulting firm Euromonitor estimated that Hasbro had by 2014 commanded 1 percent of market share in the Chinese market, was ranked seventh among the top 10 toy makers in the country and among the top three foreign toy companies alongside Lego and Mattel.

Euromonitor also projected that toy sales in China could net 97.52 billion yuan in 2019, up from the 58.03 billion yuan in 2014.

But Hasbro is not putting all its eggs into one basket, with Zhang hinting that the brand will be offering more than just toys to consumers. He noted that the new generation of Transformers fans has been very receptive to the “expanded universe of the brand” with different means of storytelling, including movies and video games that bring the characters from the Autobots and Decepticons to life.

Hasbro has already teamed up with Chinese media company Tencent to develop brand new Transformers online games exclusively for Chinese fans. These games were released at the start of August.

Fans can also look forward to visiting a Transformers-themed hotel in Shanghai that will be completed in 2018. The hotel will be operated in partnership with American hotel chain Marriott. Located within the Disney Resort, the themed hotel, the first of its kind in the world, will feature 100 rooms.

xujunqian@chinadaily.com.cn