How Many Lego Sets Part 2

In my last blog entry, I estimated and discussed the number of Lego sets, and number of sets by model, that Lego releases yearly. To summarize my estimate, TLC releases about 82 million sets, and roughly 160,000 of every model number globally.

To further the discussion, I figured I would try to estimate the number of sets, and number of sets by model, that are released by continent to get a better feel for each of these mass markets, and then try to further segment these mass markets into markets by specific countries.

To determine the percentage of sets for each continent, I looked up the GDP by continent, and used the percentage of continental GPD vs. global GDP to come up with a multiplier. Then, the quantity of sets and sets by model were multiplied by the GDP percentages to come up with a set total by continents. Without further ado, here are the results:

Data provided by the World Bank

Asia: 30.8% of global GDP / 25.2 million sets / 49,700 sets by model number
Europe: 30.5% of global GDP / 25.0 million sets / 49,200 sets by model number
North America: 27.8% of global GDP / 22.8 million sets / 44,900 sets by model number
South America: 6.0% of global GDP / 4.9 million sets / 9,700 sets by model number
Oceania: 2.5% of global GDP / 2.1 million sets / 4,000 sets by model number
Africa: 2.4% of global GDP / 2.0 million sets / 3,900 sets by model number

What do we glean from these estimates? First, while the US market is the biggest in the world, the Asian continent claims the biggest GDP, and therefore the largest percentage of sets among the continents. Europe is actually second largest, slightly behind Asia, which begs the question of whether pricing differences between European and North American markets are about how each market perceives the value of the toy rather than the competition of the market.

To get a deeper, and perhaps more useful estimate of how many sets each individual markets receive, let's further segment the continents into specific countries. I will use the % GDP of the country to the continent and multiply this percentage by the quantity calculated for each continent above. Here are the results for specific countries by continent:

countries are listed in alphabetical order by continent

Asia - 49,700
China: 38.8% of Asian GDP, 19,300 sets per model number
Japan: 28.1%, 14,000 sets
India: 8.7%, 4,300 sets
South Korea: 5.3%, 2,600 sets

Europe - 49,200 sets
Denmark: 6.4% of European GDP, 3,100 sets per model number
Germany: 16.2%, 7,970 sets
France: 12.5%, 6,150 sets Italy: 9.6%, 4,720 sets
Spain: 6.4%, 3,150 sets
UK: 11.6%, 5,710 sets

North America - 44,900 sets
Canada: 9.5% of North American GDP, 4,270 sets per model number
Mexico: 6.2%, 2,780 sets
United States: 82.2%, 36,910 sets

Oceania - 4,000 sets
Australia: 90.3% of Oceania GDP, 3,600 sets per model number
New Zealand: 8.3%, 330 sets per model number

Here's what I gleaned from these numbers.

First, the one major caveat with this model is that we know TLC doesn't distribute the sets produced to regions based on its GDP. I used GDP as a proxy for the measure of a country's economic activity and assumed TLC would distribute sets based upon this economic activity, yet this doesn't account for historical factors, purchasing patterns, regional tastes, maturity of the market, etc. As a result, I would expect the Asian figures to be overestimated since China, the second largest market according to the model, is a much newer market than many of the European and North American markets and TLC hasn't had the time to develop as the Lego market in other parts of the globe. In this same vein, I would anticipate the European markets are slightly underestimated by the model.

That said, there are some interesting observations we see from the model's output. First, this can provide a good concept of the scale of the American toy market to the rest of the world, and an idea of the competition within. When putting the set quantity into a market context, we see that the average number of Lego sets distributed by model number in the US is nearly 37,000 sets. While that seems like a lot on its surface, let's compare this quantity to the number of Walmarts, Targets, Toys R Us, Barnes & Noble stores and Lego Stores in the US:

Walmarts: 3,490
Targets: 1,725
Barnes and Noble: 777
Toys R Us: 600
Lego Stores: 35
Total major brick and mortar retail outlets selling Lego sets in the US: 6,627

This exercise neglects a whole host of regional and national chains where Brickpickers and others purchase their sets, and another major online resource, Amazon. Quickly assuming these outlets comprise another 1,000 retail outlets, we estimate the average number of lego sets by model number distributed to each retail outlet is 4.9. With 508 model numbers, that means the typical US retail outlet will receive 2,489 total Lego sets in a year, a reasonable estimate by any measure. We know that not every model is sold in every store, so this estimate has some bias.

Drilling down to from the macro market level to the micro market level can be quite illuminating, and provide Brickpickers some simple estimates to better understand the primary market. The more investors know the primary market, the better decisions they can make regarding their investment decisions.