Mattel Inc. (MAT) on Friday reported an 82% jump in second-quarter earnings as tight expense controls offset worse-than-expected sales that reflected consumers' spending cuts and retailers' efforts to curb their inventories.

Chairman and Chief Executive Robert A. Eckert said the results met the company's expectations amid the recession and a lack of toys tied to summer movies and TV shows.

The world's largest toy maker reported a profit of $21.5 million, or 6 cents a share, up from $11.8 million, or 3 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue fell more sharply than expected, dropping 19% to $898.2 million, with currency fluctuations accounting for five percentage points of the decline.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters most recently were looking for break-even results on revenue of $970 million.

The company doesn't typically provide financial guidance, and its statement made no comments about its outlook.

"Mattel's focus on mitigating costs is a positive and should somewhat offset the expected decline in revenues this year," Barclays Capital analyst Felicia Hendrix said in a note to clients. "Investors have been warming up to [Mattel] since its investor day in mid-June and this positive datapoint could be a potential catalyst."

Shares closed at $16.19 on Thursday and recently traded up 70 cents, or 4.3%, at $16.19 premarket. Heading into Friday's report, the stock is up 56% since hitting a nine-year low in March.

In Mattel's namesake brands business, which includes entertainment-related toys and major brands, sales fell 25% from last year, when the company benefited from toys tied to Batman, Kung Fu Panda and High School Musical. That was worse than the 13% drop Barclays Capital had forecast.

Hasbro Inc. (HAS), which reports results Monday, is producing toys associated with what's expected to be the best movies for toy sales this summer, namely Transformers and G.I. Joe.

Mattel is coming off a first-quarter loss and last year's miserable holiday sales season. In response, Mattel has been cutting costs and implemented price hikes at the start of 2009.

Gross margin rose to 45.2% from 44.5% amid falling costs. In addition, Mattel cut marketing costs 23% and other selling and administrative expenses fell 18.4%.

Mattel in November cut about 3% of its workforce, and it has been lowering capital spending, reducing the number of items in its product lineup and boosting direct procurement in other efforts to cut costs.

The bottom line was also boosted by $6.3 million, or about 2 cents a share, of non-operating income, while the prior year had non-operating expenses amounting to $6.4 million. Details weren't disclosed by Mattel in its press release.

Mattel's sales fell 26% internationally, with exchange rates accounting for 10 percentage points of the decline. Sales dropped 12% in North America.

In other brands, Barbie sales declined 15%, mostly on international weakness while its Matchbox, Hot Wheels and Tyco R/C business had a 10% drop. Fisher-Price gross sales fell 13%.

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