The LEGO Group’s 2017 Financial Results Are… Disappointing

At a press conference today LEGO have shared the details of their 2017 full year financial results and the numbers are far from impressive. In fact Niels B. Christiansen, the LEGO Group CEO labelled 2017 a challenging year and said that he is not satisfied with the results.

The reports contain a lot of information, most of it complex financial details that probably only make sense to accountants. Here are some of the key figures though:

There was a decrease in revenue by 8 percent to DKK 35.0 billion compared with DKK 37.9 billion in 2016. Excluding the impact of foreign currency exchange, revenue for the full year declined 7 percent compared with 2016.

Operating profit (profit before financial items and tax) for 2017 was DKK 10.4 billion compared with DKK 12.4 billion for 2016, a decrease of 17 percent year on year. Net profit for the full year was DKK 7.8 billion compared with DKK 9.4 billion in 2016.

A profit of DKK 7.8 billion is still significant but the story is obviously just how much lower that is than 2016.

LEGO are attributing the lower profits, in part, to a “clean-up of inventories across the value chain.”  I am honestly not sure exactly what that means.

LEGO have also released a document with some interesting facts for the year.

Best selling themes (random order)

  • LEGO® City
  • LEGO® Friends
  • LEGO® Star Wars™
  • LEGO® Creator
  • LEGO® DUPLO®

Best selling sets (random order)

  • LEGO® City Police Station (60141)
  • LEGO® City High Speed Chase (60138)
  • LEGO® Star Wars™ Millennium Falcon (75105)
  • LEGO® Star Wars™ BB-8 (75187)
  • THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE Minifigure Series (71017)

On the AFOL side of things there are 300 Recognised LEGO User Groups and an estimated 500,000 adult fans of LEGO.

You can read more about the annual results here. The PDF with interesting facts is found here.

Thanks to Trevor who sent me links to the interesting facts.

2 thoughts on “The LEGO Group’s 2017 Financial Results Are… Disappointing

  1. GamingDargoon94 Reply

    They need to lower their prices. In chinese parlance, it’s better to sell at lower cost but with more customers than selling it at higher price with lesser customer….at lower cost, you create more market across the board.

    • Mark Reply

      In Chinese parlance I think the word you are looking for is Lepin i.e. Chinese for stealing and selling at a lower price. LEGO has always been, and will continue to be, a premium product. Price is an issue but in fact it’s the opposite to what you suggest. By their own admission they made too many sets and were forced to sell off a lot of stock cheaply to clear warehouses which contributed to the lower profits. We saw this as customers; has anyone else not noticed that the frequency of sales and percentage off rrp increases on LEGO over the past year or so? They have gone through a period of meteoric growth and have tried to keep pace with that growth by increasing production and releasing more sets in more themes than ever. Constant growth is unsustainable. I’m not surprised they overshot at some point. I don’t think the sky is falling and suddenly LEGO has become unpopular with kids. It’s a bump in the road. They will streamline and readjust.

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