Lego running out of toys for Christmas

Children hoping to get Lego toys for Christmas may be in for a disappointment.

The Danish toy maker is having a hard time keeping up with demand for its popular plastic building blocks as toy stores stack their inventories for the Christmas season, a company official said today.

“Many of our most popular products are sold out,” Lego spokeswoman Charlotte Simonsen said.

“As part of efforts to restructure the company and focus on our core business, we had to make some cuts and the company has not had time to readjust its production.”

Simonsen declined to say how many orders had been turned down, but said the restructuring changes had affected the production of Duplo bricks and boxes with Lego City, Star Wars and Lego Technik sets.

The Billund, Denmark-based group has been trimming its staff at home and abroad since starting a restructuring programme four years ago.

Part of its production and distribution has been moved to countries with lower wages than Denmark, including the Czech Republic and Mexico. Boersen, Denmark’s leading financial newspaper, estimated that Lego could lose £70m (€104.6m) because of lost Christmas sales.