Board game launch boosts Lego sales

Toy brand Lego today said UK sales rose 28% last year after its debut as a board games maker proved successful.

Lego, which piloted new products including Pirate Plank, Magma Monster and Shave a Sheep in the UK and German-speaking countries, said the products were met with an “extremely positive response” and sales had exceeded expectations.

The Danish group said it grew its share of the UK market to 4.6% last year, which it said cemented its place as the country’s third largest toy manufacturer.

It is the firm’s fifth consecutive year of double-digit growth in the UK after sales soared 51% in 2008.

Global sales of its Star Wars products and Lego City products generated the largest growth in the year.

Overall, the Lego group saw profits grow 55.9% in 2009, to 2.9 billion Danish kroner (€387m) on a 22.4% increase in revenues to 11.7 billion kroner (€1.55bn).

The group said the world toy market as a whole was stagnant last year, with Europe and Asia enjoying growth, while Japan and the UK declined.

Lego said it bucked the trend in Britain, helped by the release of its board games.

It said this also saw it become the number five manufacturer in total games - with a market share of 3.5% – after just four months of trading.

The firm now plans to roll out the sale of its board games to markets in North America and the rest of Europe this year.

Lego boss Jorgen Vig Knudstorp said the 2009 results were “highly satisfactory”.

“We can be pleased by strong global growth which is driven by the classic product lines and in addition our launch of Lego board games has got off to a really good start.”

The firm expects the global market for traditional toys to be flat to slightly lower in 2010.

But it said Lego sales were still expected to increase in the year, with growth coming from the main markets in North America and Europe as well as smaller new markets.

Lego UK is headquartered in Slough, Berkshire, with the separately-owned theme park Legoland situated in nearby Windsor.

The company began life in a small carpenter’s workshop in 1932.

Founder Ole Kirk Christiansen came up with the name for his creation by combining the first two letters of the Danish words “leg godt”, meaning “play well”, apparently unaware that one meaning of the word Lego in Latin is “I put together”.

The firm is now one of the world’s largest toy brands and boasts that children across the globe spend five billion hours a year playing with its bricks.