LEGO to introduce concept toys in India

New Delhi, May 16: LURED by the Rs 500-crore Indian toy market, Danish toy manufacturing giant LEGO on Wednesday announced an aggressive marketing strategy, as part of which it will soon introduce its concept toys in this part of the sub-continent.

LEGO, which entered India five years ago, is also exploring tie-ups with schools to introduce its special play material.

“LEGO is bringing story or theme driven concept to toys. This season LEGO launches Life on Mars and Bionicles”, company chief (Asia Pacific region) John Ungermand, who was recently in India to finalise the launch in collaboration with Mahindra Intertrade Ltd (MIL), a trading subsidiary of Mahindra and Mahindra, said.
LEGO has established its presence as ‘edutainment’ toys and wants to further this image in the minds of the Indian consumers.

“LEGO is tying up with play schools to ensure that it is incorporated as part of the school curriculum. There would be LEGO periods for which we would offer special play material to the schools and also train the teachers on how to use it effectively”, LEGO Toys (India) head Dani Parag Sudhir said.

The company recently launched its first ‘Playroom’, an entire system of kindergarten education, at a school in Mumbai.

A survey recently commissioned by the International Council of Toy Industries (ICTI) put the size of the total market for toys across the world at $71.1 million and that in Asia at $17.17 million.

The toy industry in India is pegged at about Rs 500 crore with over 60 per cent being unorganised sector.
“Indian toy market is at its infant stage of growth. It definitely is a sunrise industry and we see tremendous growth in the next three years. Also, the industry is making a shift from being unorganised to organised and the emergence of specialised retailing will augur well for the industry,” Mr Sudhir said.

LEGO hopes to leverage on the strong financial and manpower resources of MIL in boosting its retail business in turn providing them the support of a strong consumer brand, sources said.

“Toys, across all categories, are showing an upswing. But we expect the premium end education toys to grow at a higher rate than the others,” he said.

LEGO Play Material includes Lego Baby, Lego Duplo, LegoScala, Lego Belville, Lego System, Lego Technic and Lego Mindstorms.

Asked whether removal of quantitative restrictions would affect the company he said “LEGO’s positioning makes it unique and insulates it from competition. Add to that the brand legacy and heritage and so it would not make much difference to our customer base.”

LEGO forayed into plastic building brick business in 1948 and today sells toys in 130 countries.
It is perhaps the only large player in the ‘Construction Toys’ segment in India and claims to have about 80 per cent share of the market in this sector.

The three major players in the organised sector are Funskool, Mattel India and LEGO. (PTI)