In the realm of somewhat pointless milestones (unless you’re one of their private stockholders) that are cool none-the-less, LEGO has surpassed Mattel as the largest toymaker in the world. I assume this includes being larger than Santa, because he just gives me a lot of LEGO stuff. $2.03 billion in sales and $477 million in profits is a whole lot of money, so I guess we know where that markup on sets like the Mos Eisley Cantina is going.
It’s interesting that LEGO took the crown from Mattel, who makes Barbie, owns MEGA, and also pushes American Girls and a kajillion other toys. Of course, it’s likely that the Mattel numbers don’t include all the MEGA stuff yet, but they’ve been hurting lately. I’m not sure how the Barbie MEGA Bloks line is doing, but it competes directly with Friends in the super-pink aisle of the toy store. Plus, there’s still Hasbro out there, doing what it does, and competing directly with LEGO on a lot of different lines.
We’ve covered the girl problem here recently, and I maintain that LEGO can make a huge difference in pushing toys. Given that they’re basically ignoring half the market on a huge majority of their products, it could be that making their products more diverse gets them even strong as the king of the mountain…
