JediDefender.com Forums
Community => Watto's Junk Yard => Topic started by: Jeff on September 5, 2013, 12:52 PM
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LEGO Beats Hasbro as World’s No. 2 Toymaker (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-05/lego-beats-hasbro-as-world-s-no-2-toymaker-amid-asia-sales-jump.html)
First half of the year results for the big three:
Mattel: $2.16b
LEGO: $1.84b
Hasbro: $1.43b
LEGO has been knocking on Hasbro's door for a while, looks like they finally passed them. It will be interesting to hear Hasbro's spin on this when they have their big Investor Day (http://investor.hasbro.com/eventdetail.cfm?EventID=133642) presentations next week...
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Lego puts out a lot better and more consistent product than Hasbro. Also, Lego is lot easier to find and they actually sell their new product on their website.
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Lego's theme parks are really fun!
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I would guess that the multimillions that they gave Disney to extend their Marvel license to 2020 and include the new movies in the Star Wars licenses played a part in this.
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Lego was actually number 2 for all of 2012 on sales and when you look at the net income they were number 1, beating Mattel by about $215 million.
It won't be a big surprise if they're at least number 2 again this year with Hasbro not really offering anything that would push them up the ladder. They had no Star Wars for 2/3 of the year, Transformers had no movie, the GI Joe line was a carry-over from last year and really only got 1 extra wave at retail, the Iron Man and Wolverine lines were reduced and there wasn't really any new Avengers stuff. I'd be surprised if games, girls toys (which have still been strong for them) and NERF can really make them competitive. Or Angry Birds...
Here's an indication of how much respect Lego has, IMO; my local Walmart has barely 15 feet of traditional action figure space left in their toy aisle while Lego has one side of an ENTIRE aisle...something like 40 - 50 feet.
Every year at Christmas time, my Target nearly sells out of all Lego, across the board. You'll be lucky to find a dozen leftover stets, total, by Christmas Eve.
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"Has' Blows It: Kids Say 'No' to GI JOE, 'Yes' to Lego."
In other news, PLAYMATES still in business...how many times can they reinvent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? A LOT, THEY HOPE.
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There's really no comparison. Lego has a solid product, they make good selections for toys because they understand what people want and what they do best. You can find their products easily in stores and they always have a steady stream of new stuff coming out.
Hasbro on the other hand is all over the place trying to figure out what kind of toys they want to make. Instead of sticking with action figures and making that their focus they waste an inordinate amount of time and money chasing the next big thing, which usually means piggybacking off some flavor of the week property (Angry Birds) or ripping off some other successful line ala Squinkies, Amp'd, etc.
No brand identity or seeming direction, IMO.
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I see Lego as a really strong toy and company. It's good for kids to have a creative toy where they can build and use their imagination. So many of the toys out there suck all of the imagination out of their play with electronics and speech that they are not fun to play with beyond the initial wow factor.
My six year old is always building something with his legos. It helps his hand-eye coordination and he uses his imagination to build something and then come up with stories for his creations. He is still obsessed with the TMNT. He likes to use his dupo legos to make playsets for them.
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The other beauty of LEGO besides world creation and cross functionality (you wouldn't believe how many LOTR vs Harry Potter vs Avenger battles have happened in my kids bedroom) is that while a little spendy you often get multiple figures, a vehicle and a playset which even amps up the wow factor even more.
Eric's point of sell through is spot on, Target can even keep up with demand.
Jeff pointed out somewhere that the death of Hasbro SW as we know it is directly correlated to the rise of SW Lego...I never thought about that before but it is really true
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I think another thing that helps Lego is that they retire sets. The 2014 set list looks like a lot or rehashes, but they are items that haven't been around for years. Hasbro doesn't hesitate to have three Luke or Vader figures out at the same time. The Greatest Hits stuff has killed Hasbro. The only thing I ever see at stores is GH and whatever was the first wave of the year. I am still seeing TPM wave vintage figures on the pegs. With Lego, you almost always see the new product when it comes out. I can't think of anything Hasbro has done in the past five to ten years that is as cool as the Lego Death Star and Ewoks Village sets. Maybe the Big Millennium Falcon is as cool, but that Death Star set is hard to beat. I would love to see a Hasbro set with that many play features.
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Lego puts out a lot better and more consistent product than Hasbro. Also, Lego is lot easier to find and they actually sell their new product on their website.
Change that to...
]
Lego puts out a lot better and more consistent product than unlike Hasbro.
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Lego puts out a lot better and more consistent product than Hasbro. Also, Lego is lot easier to find and they actually sell their new product on their website.
Change that to...
]
Lego puts out a lot better and more consistent product than unlike Hasbro.
(http://files.sharenator.com/Amen_Brother-s270x263-114786.jpg)
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Another thing I forgot to add is quality control. LEGO must have their toys made in some magical fairy land because they always seem to have the correct paint apps, the boxes aren't falling apart on the shelves, etc.
Hasbro seems to really struggle to maintain quality across all their lines. They use the wrong images, inferior packaging, sloppy paint apps, you name it. It just comes across as half-assed.
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One factor there is that LEGO can afford to have exceptional QC because LEGO sets cost WAY more than Hasbro toys. I'm sure if Hasbro could charge $20 for a 3.75" figure, the QC would be amazing.
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One factor there is that LEGO can afford to have exceptional QC because LEGO sets cost WAY more than Hasbro toys. I'm sure if Hasbro could charge $20 for a 3.75" figure, the QC would be amazing.
They are not that far off from that price point now. Even at $10/figure, I don't think the bubbles should be falling off.
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Another thing I forgot to add is quality control. LEGO must have their toys made in some magical fairy land because they always seem to have the correct paint apps, the boxes aren't falling apart on the shelves, etc.
Hasbro seems to really struggle to maintain quality across all their lines. They use the wrong images, inferior packaging, sloppy paint apps, you name it. It just comes across as half-assed.
I have purchased just about every Star Wars Lego set. I have been a bit behind on my building, but I finally started building the large Imperial Shuttle set a few weeks ago. This is the first set I have encountered that was actually missing pieces. They put in two copies of one bag of pieces (that should not have had two copies) and missed one bag. I called customer service and they had my missing parts shipped to me at no cost about two weeks later (and they shipped from Denmark). The real neat thing is they have everything on their computer and can tell you how many bags came in the set and can virtually open each bag in the set on the computer and tell you what should be in each bag. With over 100 unique part types in the set, it made it much easier than taking an inventory off of the parts list. The whole call probably took less than 10 minutes. I have never had to call Hasbro CS, but I doubt they could beat the department at Lego.
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Hasbro's customer service is
1. box it up and return it to store for exchange.
or
2. we'll send you a prepaid mailing label so you can mail it to us.
and/or
3. Send you an item of equal value, but probably not the same item.
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I think Lego produces a higher quality product and has clearly put more thought into collector and kid functionality. The Death Star is a fantastic example of a great collectible with dozens of moving parts and play features for kids. That said, I still think figures have a much broader appeal than lego sets. In fact, most of the Lego collectors I know are more concerned about the mini-fugres than the ships and playsets.
Hasbro and Lego have numerous lines outside of Star Wars, but strictly from a Star Wars perspective, Hasbro's had literally nothing available for multiple years now. Quality differences, product design, profit margin, etc. doesn't really matter when you aren't putting product on the shelf. It's not like Lego suddently changed their gameplan - they've had the same quality product out for a long time now. The reason that they're kicking Hasbro's butt is simply making cool stuff available to the consumer through their site, their owned stores, and through pretty much every retailer possible.
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Does Lego ever break out their sales by product line? Do we have any idea on how much SW stuff Lego sells vs. Hasbro?
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For 2012, Lego said that their 2 best selling properties were Star Wars and City with Ninjago being 3rd. But their annual report didn't give percentages or anything to break it down more.
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Walmart uses kid-test groups to rate the hot holiday toys this year:
http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=AP&date=20130912&id=16890746
They don't give the full Top-20 list in this article, but I'm willing to bet Angry Birds did not make the cut.
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If you go to Walmart's website you can see all of the stuff they chose. None of it is anything we'd be interested in. It's all actual toy stuff and for younger kids. The Ninja Turtles sewer playset made it, though, and that's probably the closest thing to a collectible on the list.
No Lego, no Angry Birds, nothing from the action figure aisle...definitely nothing Star Wars.
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The Ninja Turtles sewer playset made it, though, and that's probably the closest thing to a collectible on the list.
LOL, and Hasbro maintains kids don't want playsets. NOT!
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My son really wants that Turtles playset. It's bigger than him! Imagine a Death Star playset that tall.