STOCKHOLM – Lego A/S, the toymaker featured in a film that’s led U.S. ticket sales for three weekends, said full- year revenue advanced 10 percent with growth in all major markets, outpacing competitors including Mattel Inc.
Sales rose to 25.38 billion kroner ($4.6 billion) in 2013, the Billund, Denmark-based building-block maker said in a statement today. Net income increased 9 percent to 6.12 billion kroner.
“In less than 10 years, we have now more than quadrupled our revenue,” CEO Joergen Vig Knudstorp said in the statement. “In 2013 we successfully developed and launched products that children put high on their wish list all over the world.”
The sales advance at the Danish toymaker, whose bricks are featured in “The Lego Movie”, which opened in theaters Feb. 7, compares with an increase of 1 percent to $6.48 billion at El Segundo, Calif.-based Barbie-maker Mattel. Hasbro Inc., based in Pawtucket, said Feb. 10 that its full-year sales were little changed at $4.08 billion.
It’s a “major challenge” to stay top of mind for children seeking toys and Lego competes with “very strong players,” Knudstorp told a news conference in Billund today. “With the level of growth we have right now we need to constantly think of expanding our facilities,” he said.
Potter, SpongeBob
Lego owner Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen named Knudstorp CEO after the company posted a loss in 2003, following a period of diversification in the 1990s. Under Knudstorp, the company sold its Legoland theme parks to Merlin Entertainments Plc, cut costs, and refocused on co-branding strategies with successful products like Star Wars, Harry Potter and SpongeBob.
The global toy market declined slightly in value last year, according to Lego, which said it achieved sales growth in all major markets. Lego posted “single-digit” growth in the U.S., U.K. and northern European markets, while achieving “double- digit” expansion in most other markets with very strong growth in Asia.
The Star Wars line and its Duplo sets for toddlers were among Lego’s best-selling products in 2013, according to the company, which has said it sells 34 sets a second during the Christmas season.
The maker of plastic bricks forecast the global toy market will expand by “low single-digits” in the future and said it plans to outgrow the market and gain share.
Lego, whose name is derived from the Danish words for “play well,” is controlled by the family of carpenter Ole Kirk Kristiansen, who founded the business in 1932.
