The largest U.S. toy maker reported a profit of $328.4 million, or 89 cents a share, up from $176.4 million, or 49 cents, a year earlier. The periods included tax benefits of 8 cents a share and 13 cents, respectively.

Despite a 12% increase in Barbie sales, its overall sales were lackluster, with revenue climbing 1% to $1.96 billion. Sales fell 2% in the U.S., where Mr. Eckert said Mattel lost "a little bit" of market share, mostly as a result of fewer toys tied to entertainment than last year.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had most recently forecast earnings of 68 cents a share on $1.98 billion in revenue for the El Segundo, Calif., company.

Now, despite the company's efforts to solicit input from a group of high-profile black women, including Cookie Johnson, wife of former basketball star Magic Johnson, some parents are saying the dolls aren't black enough. They complain that five of the six dolls feature fine-textured, waist-length hair; half of them have blue or green eyes. Moreover, all have the freakishly skinny body of a Barbie (something that irks some white parents as well).

"I thought it was unfortunate that once again we're given a doll with hair that is so unlike the vast majority of black women," says Cheryl Nelson-Grimes, the mother of a 7-year-old girl and a resident of Queens, N.Y. "I feel very strongly that I want my daughter to love herself for who she is and not believe that using a hot comb or straightening her hair is the only way to be beautiful." Still, her daughter Noni says that Grace, her doll from the new Mattel line, is her favorite "because she looks like me. She has black hair and has a ponytail."

The criticism over Mattel's new black fashion dolls underscores how difficult it is for large commercial companies to please a widely diverse black community with a single image or two depicting young African-Americans. "If they had given the dolls short, kinky hair or an Afro, people might have complained that it was too Afro-centric," says Nicole Coles, a 40-year-old mother from Temecula, Calif. "We're so hard and picky."

"The initial sales targets were astronomical," said Dann Murphy, who took over as general manager as his predecessor left eight months after the store opened. Targets for the six-story outlet’s restaurant and "retail experience," which includes designing personalized Barbie dolls, have been revised down three times since its opening in March.

"Every retail store operates at a loss when it opens, but they've been open long enough that it should be working by now," said Paul French, founder of Shanghai-based market research company Access Asia. "They overestimated their brand recognition in China. I just think the concept is wrong."

Mattel has revised the overall sales target for the store to between 65 percent and 70 percent of original expectations, said Murphy. The store has started meeting its sales targets on product sales, including dolls and toys, after the targets were downgraded twice, he added.