Five Korean toy makers combined sold less than Lego Korea alone last year — and all posted losses

The combined sales of South Korea's five major domestic toy makers last year fell short of what Lego Korea alone brought in — and every one of them ended the year in the red. Young Toys, Mimi World, Choirock Contents Company, Academy Science and Gymworld all posted operating losses, as a shrinking child population driven by years of low birth rates continues to erode the foundation of the traditional toy market. The survival race among domestic toy makers is intensifying, with some companies pushing into adult-oriented "kidult" products, intellectual property licensing and even car sales to find new sources of revenue.

According to Financial Supervisory Service disclosures, the five companies' combined sales for 2025 reached 155.6 billion won ($113 million). Over the same period, Lego Korea posted sales of 185.9 billion won — roughly 30 billion won more than all five domestic rivals combined. Lego Korea's sales rose about 7 percent from 173.8 billion won in 2024, and despite a year-on-year decline in operating profit, the Danish brand still recorded a 2.5 billion won surplus.

By contrast, Mimi World posted sales of 42.8 billion won last year with an operating loss of about 160 million won, while Young Toys recorded sales of 41.8 billion won and an operating loss of 1.4 billion won. Choirock Contents Company, which holds the intellectual property for franchises including "Hello Carbot" and "Turning Mecard," reported sales of 37.2 billion won and an operating loss of 8.5 billion won.

Academy Science, best known for its plastic model kits, saw sales rise 4.6 percent year on year to 27.4 billion won but still posted an operating loss of 149.8 million won. Gymworld, which operates the Gymboree business, saw sales fall to 6.5 billion won last year from 12.5 billion won the year before — roughly half. The company's sales stood at about 30.3 billion won in 2022, meaning revenue has shrunk to about one-fifth of that level in just three years.

The five companies' combined operating losses totaled 16.23 billion won. The revenue decline is equally stark: the group's combined sales were 226.9 billion won in 2022 but fell to 155.6 billion won last year, a drop of 31.4 percent in three years. Over the same period, Lego Korea's sales slipped only 7.6 percent, from 201.2 billion won to 185.9 billion won, before returning to growth last year.

The biggest structural drag on the toy industry is simply that there are far fewer children to buy toys. According to the Ministry of Statistics, the number of births in South Korea fell from about 430,000 in 2015 to about 250,000 last year — a decline of more than 40 percent in a decade. The 2025 birth figure remains below 60 percent of the level recorded ten years earlier. The total fertility rate last year stood at 0.80.

Domestic toy makers are pursuing survival along two broad paths: widening the audience for their core toy business, or building entirely new revenue streams. Sonokong is the most prominent example of the latter. Once one of South Korea's leading toy companies, Sonokong has fundamentally restructured around cars, real estate, investment and an IP platform. Its consolidated sales for the first half of this year reached 81.8 billion won, up 249 percent from the same period a year earlier. Car sales through Klasse Auto, the official Volkswagen Korea dealer it operates, alone accounted for 54.1 billion won, or 66 percent of the total.

Young Toys is taking the consumer-expansion route. The company held a pop-up event for its Tobot franchise — "Dopamine Universe" — at Starfield Suwon in April and May. A limited-edition "Coreroid LED keycap keyring" sold 3,600 units in six days, with merchandise accounting for roughly 50 percent of total pop-up sales. The company said the results showed that Tobot's fan base could extend well beyond children to adult collectors.

"The biggest reason the toy market has shrunk overall is that there are simply fewer children," an industry official said. "On top of that, low-priced Chinese toys flooding the domestic market have made things much harder for homegrown toy companies. Each company is now looking for its own way forward — expanding its consumer base, diversifying its business portfolio."