LEGO Builds Up Momentum In Strong 1H 2015

To steal a line from “The LEGO Movie:” Everything is awesome.

If you’re LEGO.

LEGO — famed for its eponymous blocks and figurines used by young and old to build, well, just about anything that can be imagined — has jumped to the top of the heap in toyland, as CNBC reported Wednesday (Sept. 2). The Danish plastic toymaker put up strong numbers that showed heady growth across the first half of this year. And those numbers were enough to vault the company — which sells sets that, as the site noted, run the gamut from police stations to the Simpsons to Ninjago — beyond the ranks of Mattel and peers to become the biggest toymaker in the world.

The company said that for the first half of the year, sales soared 23 percent to about $2.1 billion, which compares quite favorably to a mid-single digit top line decline at Mattel (famed for Hot Wheels, among other offerings) to $1.9 billion and $1.5 billion at Hasbro, which makes Transformers and My Little Pony. LEGO’s top line growth paced double digit gains across all regions.

And, as CNBC noted, the disparity between members of that trio widens when one examines the bottom line. LEGO’s operating profit grew faster than sales, up 27 percent to $700 million, which outpaces the $130 million net at Hasbro and the $54 million in red ink at Mattel.

The latest LEGO numbers show how the company has been able to ride the success of the movie that debuted last year and the evergreen product lines, such as Star Wars, which CNBC reported stands in opposition to the struggle of other toymakers to boost sales of traditional games and toys in an increasingly digital world. LEGO has in fact embraced technology through video games and other digital media.

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