Battle of the toys: Lego overtakes Barbie

Since the release of the Lego Movie, the little plastic bricks kids love have grown in popularity as numerous spin-off products flew off the shelves.

Lego, a privately-owned Danish toymaker, said revenues soared by 11 per cent in the first six months of 2014 to £1.22 billion.

This beat rivals Fisher-Price, Mattel and Matchbox rival by a small margin last month.

Lego reported a 11% jump in sales in the first half of the year, compared with the previous year. The sales, worth $2 billion, beat Mattel’s result for the same period, making Lego the world’s largest toymaker by revenue.

Lego’s operating profit jumped by 12% in the first six months of the year.

Big factor

The Lego Movie was a “significant contributor” to the company’s latest results, it said. The animated film has made  nearly $470 million at the box office so far, and moviegoers are clearly buying lots of related merchandise.

Lego’s sales in China jumped by 50% in the first half of the year, the company said.

Whether Lego can maintain its lead on Mattel will depend on whether kids will keep pumping their parents for movie-inspired merchandise into the crucial Christmas buying season.

A busy slate of video game releases should keep sales ticking over in the meantime, the company hopes — it broke ground on its first factory in China a few months ago, as well as boosting capacity at plants in the Czech Republic and Mexico.