LEGO is now the World's Largest Toy Company

[Toys N Bricks]

The LEGO Group has recently released its annual report and from its press release, their global LEGO sales went up 15% for the first half of 2014. One of the most significant drivers this year would be The LEGO Movie. With high ratings for the movie and good sales for the LEGO Movie sets, its no doubt that this pushed it to become the world's largest toy maker.

Last year back in 2013 around the same time, LEGO became the second largest toy maker pushing Hasbro to number 3. Key growths from last year included LEGO Friends and LEGO Legends of Chima. This year, LEGO has finally claimed the spot for being the largest toy company in the world in terms of sales. Besides The LEGO Movie, other product lines such as LEGO City, Creator, Technic and Star Wars continue to have strong growth.

Back in 2004, LEGO was at the brink of a complete financial downfall. Shown below is CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp. Ever since he took up the position as CEO back in 2004 from Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen (the grandson of the original LEGO founder), LEGO was able to pull itself back up and had increases in revenue each year.



Article Link: http://toysnbricks.com/lego-is-now-the- ... y-company/

[Brick & Blue]

Funny that just 10 years ago LEGO was almost bought by Hasbro because they were losing so much money. Now they are number one.

[MrVEP]

Congrats!

Now if they only can address the issue of providing a wide variety of windows and doors styles so we can actually built cities, towns, villas etc.; like in the Movie.
Since the selection at Lego Shop is limited and in the stores is almost nonexistent. It’s frustrating to rely on the secondary market or full sets to get these pieces.

I love they are doing great which translate into a strong Lego future but, take it as constructive criticism.

[stevebuscemi]

It also has really high profit margins - i.e. overcharging for toys because it can.

[Neo]

Lego has risen to the top despite having tough copy cat competitors nipping at their heels ... Kre-O (Hasbro), Mega bloka(Mattel), Best-lock ...as well as other no name knock offs... it has done so by strong branding campaigns and market loyalty programs rather than by pricing. Between 1996 to 2006, Lego experimented with a variety of new ideas - while it was very costly for Lego - some of the Lego kits produced then were way ahead of its time. Over the last ten years, Lego has pulled back from experimentation and focused more on its core product lines with incremental changes.

[gopalkrishnan]

This is great! Whoever is responsible for Lego’s branding over the years is incredibly good at job.