LEGO publishes interim result: 18% sales growth in 1H 2015

Good job. I know that I have significantly contributed to this positive result. ;-)

The more casual consumers they have, the less they care about old fans. Or maybe not?

Not always happy with Lego product and policies, but there's no denying that they are doing a fantastic job overall. Mattel managers must be going crazy and crying when they read this! ;)

That is really strange considering their recent not insignificant price mark ups. Just to be clear, this is sales growth as in, more sales, right? If its a profit increase, that'd make sense, but an increase in sales wold be strange.

Read it and weep Mega Blocks. Read it and weep.

I'm thinking that most of the sales come from the extremely overcrowded $12-$40 "budget" price range.

I always look at the top 20 or so sellers, on the LEGO.com site, and consistently on there are Pick a Brick and various parts like baseplates. Once the initial slam of people buying a new set is over, they mostly fall off the list. Just sets like the Pet Shop seem to be on there for a long time. I can't help think its just a lot of people buying it for an 'investment' purpose..LOL

I have to say, I have cut back a lot on my budget for new sets. Partly because of the price increases, and partly, there just isn't anything I really want right now.

"more than 300 different LEGO sets on the market during the first half of 2015"

So, much more choice helps bring in global masses as well?

Hey, that's great. Now lower your ridiculous prices. Oil prices are down, shouldn't the cost of the petroleum Lego uses to make its plastic be down? Lego is more and more a toy for the bourgeoisie.

Why does the link take you to the Dutch version of this?

@Jahab - Tell me about it. Beginning in about 2007 or '08, toy companies kept jacking up their prices every year and blaming it on the booming cost of oil. So now that oil has been much cheaper the last few years, of course their prices aren't going back down.

It makes me wonder if the toy companies were lying about their price increases back then, or if they just don't want to disgorge the extra profits now. I wish they'd at least be honest and admit they aren't helplessly tied to market forces like oil prices.

Ninjago is now evergreen, very interesting.

@Modok - I've heard that a lot of factories are using less oil in producing plastics in order to save money - which might (partially) explain why plastic toys across the board feel 'cheaper' than they used to...

Sad to say that licensing probably has a large part to play in the LEGO brand visibility increase. LEGO is literally everywhere now. (Videogames help as well, I'm sure. It will be interesting to see what Dimensions does.)

Hey Lego, congratulations on ever more turnover and profit. Good to know I don't have to worry about my favourite toy company going out of business any time soon.
Now go on and invest a fraction of all that money in your quality issues so next time I buy a set like Emmet's Constructo-Mech it only contains a single shade of yellow, not five, because those colour differences are really beginning to piss me off.

Not sure what "strong product innovation" Ninjago, Elves and Creator are supposed to have had. Just looks the same old same old to me.

@Modok
This can be seen in other market areas also - for example hard drives - something happens which drives the price up, but when the production costs again are lowered, there is no incentive to lower the price too.

What lowers prices is competition, not the cost of materials.

And since LEGO has no competition, we will be seeing increases for a while to come. Sure, you can say the other companies have improved and maybe they have, but most die-hard LEGO fans aren't shopping around to other brick systems. I haven't had other companies since the early 90s when Tyco had a good line-up.

With all of that said, it makes sense to have more profit this year, but the title says sales growth. So more people are buying more sets at higher prices than 2014. Which means, people will buy anything and LEGO has no incentive to lower the prices. At best, they will keep it consistent for a few years and then raise them again. Maybe add in a few extra bricks to "justify" the cost.

They are a business and they are doing that part right.

For those complaining about LEGO prices being higher than they should be, I direct you to this article: http://www.realityprose.com/what-happened-with-lego/ Some themes' prices have risen, but overall, both the price-per-piece and price-per-gram of today's sets are still lower than they were in the 80s.

@DanRSL: Maybe try looking again with your eyes (and mind) open? All those themes have brilliant sets with creative functions, color schemes, and building techniques (just look at 31039 Blue Power Jet's wing construction, the parting leaf function in 41075 The Elves' Treetop Hideaway, and the rotating shooter function of 70747 Boulder Blaster).

All of this year's Ninjago dragons have brick-built heads that use parts creatively to create a lifelike shape, and the story direction has taken interesting turns with a sinister tournament of elemental masters and a human cult that worships the Anacondrai snake tribe introduced in 2012. The Elves theme uses a dazzling array of colors and shapes to create a magical fantasy world where people live in harmony with nature and the elements (like a waterfall shower, an oven built underneath a lava flow, and the aforementioned leaf curtains). The Creator Changing Seasons set introduces an entirely new spin on the 3-in-1 concept. Innovation is everywhere in these themes if you don't willfully ignore it.

The link currently goes to the Swedish version.