Lego has continued to build on its recent success as its UK sales and profit rose for the sixth year in a row in 2023.
The Berkshire-headquartered division of the Danish giant has reported a turnover of £449.2m for its latest financial year, up from the £440m it posted for 2022.
According to newly-field documents with Companies House, Lego’s pre-tax profit also grew from £18.9m to £24.2m over the same period.
The last time the business did not increase its UK sales and pre-tax profit was in 2017 when its turnover fell to £269.6m, from £286.4m in 2016, and its profit went from £11.4m to £10.7m.
Lego did not issue a dividend to its parent company during the year after having made a £20m pay out in the prior period.
During the year the average number of people employed by the company in the UK rose from 1,323, to 1,522.
A statement signed off by the board said: “The directors are satisfied with the financial performance for 2023.
“The Lego company’s outlook for 2024 is single-digit revenue growth.
“The Lego company plans to continue to invest in initiatives which address evolving trends and are designed to deliver growth in the long term.”
Sales up but profit down at Lego group
For the same financial year, the wider Lego group posted a turnover of DKK 65.9bn (£7.4bn), a rise of two per cent which it said was achieved “despite the declining toy market”.
It also reported an operating profit of DKK 17.1bn (£1.9bn), down from the DKK 17.9bn (£2bn) it posted in 2022. Lego said it had “accelerated spending on strategic initiatives to support growth”.
When the group results were announced, chief executive Niels B. Christiansen said: “We are pleased with our performance given that 2023 was the most negative toy market in more than 15 years.
“We continued to grow on top of three years of extraordinary growth and saw strong momentum in the final quarter of 2023.
“We significantly outpaced the market, growing share and proving the appeal of our strong, diverse portfolio and the LEGO System in Play.”