It’s easy to forget Lego nearly went bankrupt in 2003, given all its success today.
On Tuesday, Lego reported that sales last year jumped 17% YoY to $9.27B.
After passing Mattel on the toy sales charts in 2014, the 90-year-old Danish company now brings in ~2x its fellow toymaker’s revenue, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Lego’s recent success is also markedly different from developments at Hasbro, which saw revenue decline 9% YoY and recently announced plans to cut 15% of its workforce.
So, what’s going well at Lego?
The company’s been quick to bring new toys to market — last year, 48% of Lego’s products were new — and in expanding its retail footprint. In 2022, Lego opened 155 new shops, with an emphasis on China, bringing its total store count to 904.
Lego has also weathered global supply chain challenges relatively well because of its focus on vertical integration. Last year, the company broke ground on a new factory in Vietnam, and plans to open another in Virginia.
Digital has also been huge
The company said its Builder App was downloaded 13.6m times in 2022, up 42% YoY, and that its social app was downloaded 7.1m times.
Also in 2022, Lego’s website saw 395m visits, up 38% YoY, and the company’s digital team grew 43% to 1.3k people.
This year, Lego plans to launch a kid-friendly metaverse as part of a $1B investment partnership with Epic Games.
Fun fact: Researchers found that a single Lego brick can withstand 950 lbs. of force, or the weight of 375k bricks on top of it.
