LEGO announces record profits

Colourful building blocks have carried LEGO safely through a sluggish global toy market

Toy colossus LEGO released its annual accounts today, revealing its tenth record-high profit in eleven years.

Since bottoming out in 2003 with a 1.5 billion kroner loss, the company has generated a surplus of 8.2 billion kroner.

Lego's total revenue rose by 10 percent, amounting to 25.5 billion kroner in 2013 compared to 23 billion kroner in 2012.

"LEGO beat its own profit record for the tenth time despite a general crisis in the global toy industry," enthused the CEO of LEGO, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp.

"In 2013 our sales alone rose by 11 percent, which was much better than the development in the general toy market. That is a very pleasing result. In less than ten years we have more than quadrupled our revenue," he told financial newspaper EPN.

While sales have been down in the US, Canada, Europe and Japan, a new increased focus on the Chinese market has caused sales to rise significantly there.

"We will keep our focus on China," Knudstorp said. "In China there are 600 million kids fitting LEGO's target group, so there's an enormous potential hidden there."





  • How internationals can benefit from joining trade unions

    How internationals can benefit from joining trade unions

    Being part of a trade union is a long-established norm for Danes. But many internationals do not join unions – instead enduring workers’ rights violations. Find out how joining a union could benefit you, and how to go about it.

  • Internationals in Denmark rarely join a trade union

    Internationals in Denmark rarely join a trade union

    Internationals are overrepresented in the lowest-paid fields of agriculture, transport, cleaning, hotels and restaurants, and construction – industries that classically lack collective agreements. A new analysis from the Workers’ Union’s Business Council suggests that internationals rarely join trade unions – but if they did, it would generate better industry standards.

  • Novo Nordisk overtakes LEGO as the most desirable future workplace amongst university students

    Novo Nordisk overtakes LEGO as the most desirable future workplace amongst university students

    The numbers are especially striking amongst the 3,477 business and economics students polled, of whom 31 percent elected Novo Nordisk as their favorite, compared with 20 percent last year.