Some Things Are Not Awesome: A Lego Shortage is Looming

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Say it ain’t so! With Christmas on its way, The Lego Group announced it has been overwhelmed by the global demand for the plastic bricks and a shortage of Legos is imminent.

The Denmark-based toy block magnate will run out of the popular multicolored building bricks during the peak holiday shopping season.

“The demand for Lego products during the first half of 2015 has been significantly higher than our and our customers’ expectations and projections and this has put a strain on the Lego Group’s manufacturing facilities globally,” Lego press officer Roar Trangbæk wrote in a statement.

But don’t freak out. The looming Lego shortage isn’t expected to impact the United States, according to MarketWatch.

“We don’t anticipate a problem in the American market,” Trangbæk told MarketWatch. “We follow the situation closely in the U.S. and take the appropriate action to make sure we’re ready to meet the demand we usually experience in the run-up to Christmas.”

Which means everything is awesome in Lego world again – if you live in the United States.

Lego-loving kids in other parts of the world might not be so lucky. Trangbæk said the toymaker’s shortage of plastic bricks will impact some areas of Europe.

“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.”

Though Trangbæk declined to pinpoint which European countries or Lego products would be affected by the impending shortage, MarketWatch said Lego’s home country of Denmark will likely be affected.

In terms of revenue and profit, the family-owned Lego company overtook Mattel in 2014 to become the biggest toymaker in the world, CNN Money reports.

The success of “The Lego Movie” increased the popularity of the toy bricks, driving a surge in Lego sales in Europe, the Americas and Asia, CNN Money said. In 2014, the toymaker made 60 billion Lego pieces.

Lego plans to expand its toy-making factories in Mexico, Hungary and Denmark to try and keep up with demand for the plastic bricks. But that won’t help the shortage of Legos this year.

MarketWatch said Lego also struggled to keep up with the holiday demand for the building blocks in 2010, 2012 and 2014.

Are you a Lego-lover? What do you think about the popularity of the plastic bricks? Share your comments below or on our Facebook page.

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