Lego wants people to stop buying its toys - for a while at least 3500 hours to build. 25 different icons of Rio. Lego in partnership with the Danish government created the massive model as a legacy gift to the city. Business has been so brisk at the world's most profitable toymaker that Lego last year did something unusual: It began looking for ways to discourage customers from buying its products.The Danish company scaled back its advertising efforts amid a 25 per cent rise in annual sales, according to Reuters. It simply couldn't make enough toys to meet demand in North America, and needed a break while it boosted capacity at its factories and increased its workforce by nearly 25 per cent."We feel we need to invest, to build some breathing space," John Goodwin, Lego's chief financial officer, told Reuters. Lego is so successful it's struggling to keep up with demand. Lego, a family-owned company founded in 1932, has enjoyed booming growth for decades.READ MORE: * Lego accused of producing 'significantly more violent' products * Imagine Lego but better - a Kiwi has invented FlexoThe company has released thousands of sets of its eponymous blocks, forging licensing deals with popular brands including Star Wars, Angry Birds and Disney Princesses.
It has also taken on iconic architecture: A model of the US Capitol building is for sale on Lego's site for US$99.99 (NZ$135), while a White House set sells for US$49.99. A replica of the Ghostbusters firehouse, meanwhile, is listed for US$349.99. Lego has six Legoland theme parks. The company's dominance has also extended into the company's six Legoland theme parks, 125 retail stores and dozens of video games. The Lego Movie, a full-length movie released in 2014, brought in US$468.1 million at the box office.The company's revenue has increased by an average of 15 per cent a year in the past 12 years, according to Reuters.The efforts to quell demand seem to have worked - at least temporarily. Sales in the Americas remained flat during the first half of 2016, according to Reuters. (Revenue in Asia and Europe, meanwhile, continued to grow by double digits.)Overall, Lego's revenue rose 11 per cent to roughly US$2.35 billion in the first half of the year, ahead of the US$1.83b reported by Mattel, the maker of Barbie.
But executives at Lego are hoping to ramp up production in time for this year's holiday season, Goodwin said:"We are working very closely with our retail partners to ensure that as we go into the important holiday season, the back half of 2016, that we've got all of the levers pulled to get back on the growth trajectory."The company is buildings its first factory in China, and is expanding existing plants in Mexico, Hungary and Denmark. Lego also hired 3500 employees in the first half of the year, increasingly its workforce to 18,500, according to the Wall Street Journal."In the past decade we have seen LEGO sales growth in the double digits year after year," Goodwin said in a statement in October. "We are of course very excited about this development. [But] the high demand also puts a strain on our factories around the world."This Lego Death Star sold for $1499 on Trade Me. Could you have a goldmine in the bottom of your toybox?There has been much discussion over recent years about the strength of growth in house prices and share markets.
But could the real investment all this time have been Lego?There has been a resurgence in interest in the small plastic blocks - much cursed by parents who find them underfoot - and some collectors are getting megabucks for their pieces. This Lego Star Wars Star Destroyer sold for $1004 on Trade Me. While Auckland house prices are up 68 per cent on their 2007 peak and the NZX50 has grown more than 130 per cent since 2009, some canny Lego buyers have seen their collections increase in value by more than 500 per cent over that time.Trade Me spokesman Logan Mudge said: "Lego has done a magnificent job of reigniting its relevance and extended its plastic tentacles not only from offline into online but collaborating with a vast array of brands to ensure it is embedded in a huge range of popular culture. it is an extraordinary example of a brand that is loved across generations."There are more than 1000 Lego items sold on Trade Me each week and last year there were more than a million searches for the blocks.
Michelle Smith runs Trade Me Lego business John3.16. The three most expensive Lego listings sold in the past six weeks were all Star Wars-related: A Lego Death Star, which sold for $1499, a Lego motorised walking AT-AT for $1199 and a Lego Imperial Star Destroyer, which went for $1004.Some of the priciest Lego listings on the site at the moment are a Taj Mahal replica for $3199, a Cafe Corner set for $4300, a modular building collection for $3995 and a Star Wars rebel blockade runner for $33000. The Lego Cafe Corner set was US$139.99 when it was first released in 2007. This Lego AT-AT sold for $1199 on Trade Me. She said it was optimistic but possible the Cafe Corner set could sell for $4300, which would represent a price increase of almost 1500 per cent. She said similar sets were selling for about $2000 plus shipping and customs overseas, a value lift of about 640 per cent. She developed an interest in Lego after listing a piece for $1 on Trade Me, which "went crazy".
She had noticed people taking an investment approach to their Lego, buying key pieces and putting them aside. "A little while ago, people started realising if you saved sets and did not open them, certain sets would go up in value. People see it like stocks and shares."Collectible Minifigures were particularly sought-after, she said, and could sell for hundreds of dollars.Smith recommended anyone who wondered about the value of their Lego collection check sites such as eBay and Lego collector websites to judge the prices their pieces might command. LEGO plastic construction bricks are one of the most popular and best-selling toys of all time. They are fun and challenging for children and adults of all ages, are highly collectable, inspirational and will develop the builders of tomorrow through creative play and learning! LEGO, the LEGO logo, the Minifigure, LEGO FRIENDS, the LEGO FRIENDS logo, LEGO STAR WARS, the LEGO STAR WARS logo, LEGO CITY, the LEGO CITY logo, LEGO ELVES, the LEGO ELVES logo, LEGO NINJAGO, the LEGO NINJAGO logo, LEGO CLASSIC, the LEGO CLASSIC logo, LEGO CREATOR, the LEGO CREATOR logo, LEGO MINECRAFT, the LEGO MINECRAFT logo, LEGO SUPER HEROES, the LEGO SUPER HEROES logo