Danish toymaker Lego has announced an increase in sales for the first six months of the year.
Lego had pre-tax profits of DKK238m (ˆ32m) for the rest half of 2006, against a loss of DKK202m (ˆ27m) during the same period last year. The group said the improvement was due to a 19% increase in sales.
Demand for classic products such as Lego City and Duplo pre-school was said to be strong.
The Nordic, Benelux and Japanese markets performed better than expected. Major markets such as the USA, Germany, Britain and France were “level” with expectation.
Lego had predicted a lower sales total for 2006, but in view of its first half performance it expects its year-end total to match those of 2005, which was in the order of DKK7b (ˆ93m).
In June, Lego announced that it was outsourcing some of its production to the Czech company Flextronics (PRW.com 21 June 2006). Under the restructuring programme, Lego’s US plant is to be closed and relocated to Flextronics’ operation in Mexico. Production of Lego’s Duplo products has already been moved to Flextronics in Hungary.
