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Posted on Yahoo.com News
At 50, Lego still going strong despite high-tech toy world
by Slim Allagui 1 hour, 50 minutes ago
COPENHAGEN (AFP) - Lego's colourful bricks that have inspired kids' imaginations
worldwide celebrated their 50th anniversary Monday after resisting fierce
competition from high-tech computer games that nearly brought the company down a
few years ago.
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On January 28, 1958, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen submitted a patent for the
interlocking and studded plastic brick that can now be found in almost every
child's toy box.
The simple building block has become one of the most well-known and popular toys
in the world.
The key to its success?
"The Lego brick doesn't age with time and continues to fascinate because it
allows children, and others, to develop their creativity, imagination and
curiosity and let it wander free," said Charlotte Simonsen, a spokeswoman at
Lego's headquarters in the western Danish town of Billund.
The family company Lego, whose name comes from the first two letters of the
Danish words "Leg godt" or "play well" in English, was founded before the
invention of the famous block, by Ole Kristiansen in 1932.
The company's iconic toy allows an infinite number of assembly combinations.
With just two bricks there are 24 different combinations, and with six there are
915 million possibilities, according to Lego.
A half-century after its creation, more than 400 million children and adults
play each year with the bricks, spending five billion hours a year putting them
together and pulling them apart.
The bricks made today can still interlock with those made in the first batch in
1958, note avid Lego fans.
And make no mistake about it, Lego bricks are not just child's play -- they also
capture the imagination of adults.
South Korean adventurer Heo Young-Ho, who climbed Mount Everest in 1987, left a
Lego toy behind in the snow after his ascent.
"I've kept a box in the attic with Lego from my childhood. They never go out of
style and they box is full of memories of long hours spent building things with
my friends," said 21-year-old Alexander.
Primo, Quatro, Duplo, Toolo, Technic, Mindstorm... New Lego bricks have been
developed throughout the years to suit the needs of babies and adolescents, the
pieces' perfect fit making piracy difficult.
After its planetary success, Lego experienced a severe crisis at the end of the
1990s, hit hard by fierce competition from interactive electronic and computer
games which brought the Danish company to its knees for the first time in its
history.
Named "Toy of the Century" in 1999 by US business magazine Fortune, Lego
suffered through a dark period that last several years that risked relegating
the plastic brick to the history books.
The company had diversified into theme parks and branded products, including
clothing, books, watches and multimedia games, but reported millions of dollars
(euros) in losses in 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2004.
Some experts were quick to eulogize the colourful brick, including
educationalist and toy researcher Torben Hangaard Rasmussen.
"Lego bricks belong to the industrial era when children liked to build things,
playing wannabe engineers. Nowadays, the most popular toys are inspired by the
virtual world," he said in 2004.
Then, at the height of Lego's crisis, owner and chief executive officer Kjeld
Kirk Kristiansen tried to get a hold on the situation and save the family
business from bankruptcy, injecting more than 800 million kroner (158 million
dollars, 107 million euros) of his personal fortune into the business.
Several months later he resigned as chief executive, handing over the reins to
35-year-old Joergen Vig Knudstorp, who brought a breath of fresh air to the
company. Determined to bring the company back to financial stability, he
proceeded to lay off staff, focus on core operations and close down production
sites.
The company began to prosper again, and in 2006 it posted sales of 7.8 billion
kroner (1.04 billion euros, 1.5 billion dollars) in 130 countries and a 1.4
billion kroner net profit.
Seven boxes of Lego are sold every second around the world, and 19 billion
components are produced each year -- enough to wrap around the Earth's
circumference five times.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080128/lf_afp/lifestyledenmarkcompanygamelegoanniversary
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