LEGO closed more retail stores than it opened in 2024

The LEGO Group closed more stores than it opened in 2024 as its retail expansion slowed in comparison to previous years, despite skyrocketing profits and sales.

While revenue, consumer sales and operating profit all reached record highs in 2024 thanks to increased demand and ‘a resilient supply chain’, the LEGO Group opened just 74 new stores last year. That’s a much smaller leap than we’ve seen in previous years: 165 stores opened worldwide in 2021, 155 opened in 2022, and 147 opened for the first time in 2023.

The total number of LEGO Stores operating around the world is now 1,069, which from 2024 also includes 40 stores in LEGOLAND parks and LEGOLAND Discovery Centres operated by Merlin Entertainments. That number is two down from the equivalent count in 2023. The full breakdown of LEGO Stores as of the end of 2024 is as follows:

The LEGO Group’s full annual report confirms that the company has ‘opened stores in new locations and closed others’ without putting a specific number on those closures, but says they’re a result of its aim to ‘constantly assess and optimise our store portfolio across markets’. If 74 stores opened in 2024 and the global count is down two, though, it doesn’t take a maths prodigy to figure out that 76 stores must have closed.

It’s tricky to say where those closures may have taken place without any concrete statistics from the LEGO Group, but an educated guess may be to look towards China. The LEGO Group has consistently championed its growth in the booming Chinese market, driven in part by rapid retail expansion, but in 2023 acknowledged a decline in China amid a ‘challenging economic environment’.

The 2024 report mentions China only in the same context, stating that the market has continued to underperform due to slow economic growth. The LEGO Group says that was offset by growth in ‘all other markets’ – so if it’s going to start closing stores anywhere, it makes sense for it to be in China, where the company opened 90 stores in 2021 and 95 stores in 2022 alone.

We can only speculate at this stage, but the net result either way is that there are now fewer LEGO Stores operating worldwide than there were 12 months ago – and that’s a marked difference in retail strategy for the LEGO Group compared to the landscape of the past five years or so.

Click here to read more about the LEGO Group’s financial performance in 2024, or head here to discover its five best-selling themes last year.

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