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Mattel Inc. (MAT) is on track with cost-cutting targets and continues to believe the toy industry will hold up fairly well even as the economy remains difficult through 2009, executives said Wednesday.

"As I've said before, there isn't a lot of good news out there, but the absence of new bad news is at least helping to neutralize consumer sentiment," company Chairman and Chief Executive Robert A. Eckert said during the world's largest toy maker's annual analyst-day presentation.

He and Chief Financial Officer Kevin Farr didn't comment specifically on recent sales or ordering trends during the presentation, the Internet broadcast of which was cut short. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect the El Segundo, Calif., company to post 2009 earnings of $1.18 a share on $5.6 billion in revenue.

But Farr reiterated Mattel's February comments that the top line will be pressured in 2009 by the foreign-currency exchange effects of a stronger U.S. dollar, consumer pullbacks, retailers' desire for less inventory, and a relatively light year for blockbuster movies that can generate toy tie-ins.

For 2010, Needham & Co. analyst Sean McGowan said, Mattel has the toy rights tied to a Walt Disney Co. (DIS) animated musical based on the Rapunzel story that will feature the same musical team who wrote the music for the movies "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast."

"We did NOT expect this product for 2010, so this news is incremental to our product assumptions for next year," McGowan told clients in a note Wednesday.

Mattel also has the toy rights to Disney Pixar Animation Studios Inc.'s "Cars" movie. McGowan said the full-length animated sequel is coming in 2011 and Mattel has the toy rights for it, too.

During the webcast, CFO Farr said Mattel remains on track for $90 million to $100 million in net cost savings in 2009 and $180 million to $200 million in savings by the end of 2010.

In November Mattel cut 1,000 jobs worldwide, or about 4% of its workforce, and it is taking other cost-cutting steps related to outsourcing information technology services and reducing the number of items in its product lineup.

Farr said Mattel, "over time," is targeting gross margins of 50% as it passes along pricing better than it has in recent years and produces innovative, higher margins products.

Mattel had 17.2% of the U.S. toy market in 2008, up 30 basis points from the previous year and topping cumulative share gains for the seven next-largest toy makers, the company said, citing research from the NPD Group. Its iconic Barbie brand had 30% of the market for fashion dolls, up 1.2 percentage points, last year.

Shares of Mattel recently traded up 16 cents, or 1%, at $15.82. Year to date, shares are down 2%, compared with a 1.5% decline in the Standard & Poor's 500.

-By Mary Ellen Lloyd, Dow Jones Newswires; 704-948-9145; maryellen.lloyd@dowjones.com