The Danish toy maker is going to have issues meeting demand in European markets, but the U.S. will be replete with LEGO bricks for the holiday, a company spokesman with the coolest name ever told MarketWatch.
“We don’t anticipate a problem in the American market. This has quickly been touted as a global problem, but it’s only an issue some places in Europe,” Roar Rude Trangbæk said.
LEGO is right on top of things in America, and has made sure it’s ready to meet the kind of demand it’s come to expect during the holiday season, he added.
Europeans are out of luck because of where LEGO’s factories are: U.S. bricks come from a company plant in Monterrey, Mexico, while the blocks on the continent are made in Denmark, Hungary and the Czech republic. Those factories can’t keep up with demand at the moment, amidst a spike in popularity due to a recent LEGO movie and themed toys like Batman and Star Wars.
“Our factories are running on maximum capacity globally, but the demand has been bigger than we expected,” Trangbæk said. “There isn’t capacity to meet the demand for replenishment orders on some European markets, but that doesn’t mean we’re running out of Lego bricks globally.”
This isn’t the first time LEGO has had trouble keeping up during the holidays — it had a rough time meeting demand in 2010, 2012 and 2014 as well — so it’s been working on expanding factories. Facilities in Mexico, Hungary and Denmark will be the next slated for expansion, LEGO said earlier this week. They won’t be ready in time for the holidays in Europe, however.
Lego shortage to hit Europe, but not U.S. [MarketWatch]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist