Bricks (and mortar) to help make everything awesome for Lego in Hong Kong
The city, which has the largest number of adult fans of Lego per head of population in the world, could be a key market as the company tries to reverse its recent falling fortunes
Lego plans to add more bricks-and-mortar stores in Hong Kong, where it has a legion of loyal adult fans of its colourful interlocking plastic blocks, as it seeks to offset falling sales elsewhere in the world.
The company has three stores in Hong Kong and an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 adult Lego fans, or AFOLs as the company calls them, a group of users the company has been increasingly targeting with special products in part as a way to beat intense competition in the toy market.
“We have the largest and the most engaged adult fans, or the so-called AFOLs, base in terms of per head of population here in Hong Kong,” said Troy Taylor, the company’s general manager for Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, speaking on the sidelines of the first Toys ‘R’ Us toy fair in Hong Kong.
He said some are so dedicated that they had queued up from 3am outside the Lego store in the city’s Causeway Bay shopping district on the day of its opening in late 2017, just to be first through the doors.
“We have been growing very steadily in the past 10 years and we are looking to open a few more stores in Hong Kong in the next two to three years,” Taylor said.
The company’s flagship Hong Kong store, in the shopping hub of Mong Kok, is its largest in Asia, and it has another in Sha Tin in Hong Kong’s north, which opened in December, as well as the Causeway Bay outlet. Southeast Asian shoppers are also big buyers of Lego in Hong Kong as prices are generally lower.
