How many individual copies of each set does LEGO produce?

[Lego David]

The title says it all, I am very curious, is there any way to know how many copies of each individual set are produced in total on average? Is it a few tens of thousand copies for each set? Or perhaps hundreds of thousands? I guess it every much depends on the sets in question, but if there are any experts in here that happen to know a thing or two about this subject, feel free to share it with us. 

[Lyichir]

I don't know any specific numbers (and I'm not sure whether they'd be available except in the case of highly limited edition products like con exclusives and other numbered collectibles) but a basic rule of thumb tends to be that smaller sets are typically produced and sold in greater numbers than bigger ones. Which makes sense—smaller sets are both cheaper to produce and ship in quantity than large ones (i.e. a pallet of small sets will contain way more individual products than a similarly sized pallet of large ones), and are affordable to a larger number of buyers.

[Roses]

41999, the exclusive edition of the 4x4 crawler, had a run of 20,000 copies. Whether it was advertised as limited edition - I do not know, but to disclose the amount of copies produced might mean that it is indeed on the smaller side of production runs. The "number who own" statistic on Brickset can help compare numbers from one set to another. It is by no means a representative figure, though, as only a fraction of people log their collection on the website.

[AmperZand]

I doubt that the exact numbers of each set produced are publicly disclosed though we do know that limited production runs, e.g. for limited edition sets, are in the 5,000 to 20,000 sets range.

It may be possible to roughly approximate the number of other sets based on the financials that LEGO provides in its annual report. We know, for example, total revenues, proportion of sale of goods (99% vs 1% for licences) and revenues by region (38% NA/LATAM, 44% EMEA, 18% AP). I'm guessing that of the retail sales price (less tax where that is applied in the price, e.g. in countries where VAT is used), LEGO derives revenues of 60% (the rest goes to the retailer). Of course, D2C sales shouldn't have that proportion deducted. As @Lyichir suggests, sets are likely produced in the same proportion as their price or their physical boxed volume. With all of those data points, it should be possible to get a very rough idea of how many of each set are produced a year. You could then back check the estimate against what seems reasonable, i.e. a 'sanity check'. You might be surprised how close to being right you could get using that method. I used to use a similar top-down approach when estimating unit sales of a completely different class of products and later found out when I got my hands on some actual figures that my guestimates were surprisingly close.

I don't have time to do it for LEGO sets, but the methodology does work and is an accepted approach in all sorts of industries.

[Mylenium]

On 8/20/2021 at 4:16 PM, Lego David said:

Is it a few tens of thousand copies for each set? Or perhaps hundreds of thousands?

Yes and Yes. The proof is in the pudding when occasionally some real info from the sales channels supply chains drops. Sometimes they struggle to sell off 30000 crappy LEGO Friends sets throughout the whole lifecycle of those sets, other times they sell that number of boxes in the first week when a new popular Star Wars set is released. And of course there is a million ways to reverse-guesstimate the numbers based on annual reports, package units in circulation or simply extrapolating what you see on store shelves. A recent example would e.g. be the failed VIDIYO where Rossmann, one of our largest drugstore chains had around 5 of each BeatBoxes on the shelves initially. They have approximately 2300 stores in Germany of which around 600 have toys. That alone could therefore account for 3000 of those BeatBoxes based on simple math. Add to that their online store and potential refills and they alone could in theory have sold 10000 Pirate DJs, Folk Fairies, Metal Dragons and so on. Rinse repeat for other retailers. Of course VIDIYO was pushed rather aggressively and the numbers are high, but it's really not that difficult to arrive at sensible numbers for each set once you start to think about and investigate where they are sold in what quantities.

Mylenium

Edited August 21, 2021 by Mylenium
Typos

[NickLafreniere]

I think most sets are produced with at least 100,000 units, and some probably sell a couple million units (F.R.I.E.N.D.S, Saturn V)

[dr_spock]

One of my LEGO store grand opening sets has 442 of 500 printed on it.

[ks6349]

If you are this curious to know there is still a way to figure it out but it is quite a waste of time.

I once often visited a local toy shop I was familiar with and often waited in his shop when new sets were expected to come on the day, because I wanted to get fresh boxes so that it was perfect. Then you can estimate how many copies of a particular set he has and then you can make estimation on other shops too, my experience is except Amazon or other big things, most small one-man-bank toy shops are of similar scale so they are getting similar quantities of products, then you can make your estimation. Now I don't wait for fresh sets because I am not a perfect box addict and the price isn't the best when it is freshly released.

[Faefrost]

Production numbers will vary wildly based on theme, price point, historical data etc. the highest produced are almost certainly the smaller impulse buy City sets. They will likely see production numbers upwards of a million. The lowest produced outside of special promotional stuff is likely the D2C stuff, that is selling more into a niche adult hobbyist market. The minimum production run for something like that may be as low as 10-20k for things like some Ideas sets. Most of the D2C stuff probably plateau’s around 100,000-500,000 units per production run. 

[Northgeorgiamasonry]

On 9/2/2021 at 9:34 AM, NickLafreniere said:

I think most sets are produced with at least 100,000 units, and some probably sell a couple million units (F.R.I.E.N.D.S, Saturn V)

This feels like a very AFOL perspective.  Central Perk and Saturn V are popular among AFOLs but probably nowhere close to TLG’s bestsellers.  The $10-20 City, Friends, and Star Wars sets that are found in every Wal Mart and Target and are getting picked up daily from every store for a kids birthday party present - those are the bestsellers.