Lego builds on console sales as profits jump 31%

Lego said net income jumped 31% last year.

A new video game helped Europe’s biggest toymaker gain market share in all its regions.

Net income rose to 9.2bn kroner (€1.23bn) in 2015, from 7bn kroner a year earlier, the Denmark-based company said.

Profit grew faster than sales, which expanded 25%, to 35.8bn kroner.

Lego said sales grew by a “double-digit” percentage rate in all its regions, including the US, and faster than the toy industry’s expansion, which was mostly in the “mid-single digit” range.

Lego continues to outpace the two largest US toy-makers, who may be considering a merger.

Mattel said last month that full-year sales fell 5%, to $5.7bn (€5.2bn), while Hasbro said that 2015 sales grew 4%, to $4.45bn.

Lego’s growth was fuelled by new products, such as Lego Dimension, which combines traditional brick-building with console game-playing.

Earlier this year, Lego said it would invest €100m in its factory in Hungary, to double the size of its facilities there and avoid shortages that have plagued the Christmas period in recent years.

Lego has become the world’s largest toy-maker by sales, overtaking US Barbie-maker, Mattel, thanks partly to toys linked to movies.

But Lego ran short of bricks before Christmas last year. The company is also building a factory in Jiaxing, in China.