Ten years ago, a 2 x 4 plastic blocks was just a part number on a production line in China; today, a local company specializing in building block toys has seen its shares soar by more than 80% on the first day of its listing in Hong Kong, bringing the economy of “adult collectors” under the spotlight. Around the same time, LEGO announced its 2024 financial results, with revenues of DKK 74.3bn and net profit of DKK 13.8bn, another record high. On the one hand, there is a proven benchmark, on the other hand, there is an accelerated sprint to catch up, although the gap is still there, but it is not an unfathomable chasm, and it is more of a runway that has been shortened by the quality, design and speed of globalization.

Industry Insight: “LEGO's Global Success Is Driven by Four Core Forces—Unrivaled Quality, Cutting-Edge Design, Educational Integration, and Cross-Industry Ecosystem.”. This analysis reveals the commercial secret behind those tiny plastic bricks. Many Chinese manufacturers have come to realize a fundamental truth about building blocks: “First, perfect a single brick. Then, turn it into more than just a brick.”

At the heart of construction toys lies the core play mechanic—assembly. The tactile quality of the bricks, the smoothness of the build, and the precision of each component directly shape the user’s experience. LEGO has invested enormous time and capital into perfecting its parts, achieving an exceptional dimensional tolerance of just 5 micrometers (μm), laying a rock-solid foundation for its brand reputation.

In contrast, the current state of Chinese manufacturers can be summed up with one phrase: “Closing the gap in precision—fast.” Over the past five years, leading factories in South China and East China, particularly in Chenghai (widely known as the toy capital), have completed full-line upgrades with CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machining and hot runner systems. At this year’s DMC (Die & Mould China) Precision Mould Exhibition, publicly measured sample bricks showed average cavity tolerances compressed to just 10–15 micrometers (μm). The event also featured live demonstrations of long-term testing results, showcasing mold durability exceeding one million injection cycles and zero flash rate (i.e., no excess plastic at the edges).

This progress has a very tangible outcome: in blind tests, the misidentification rate of domestic bricks versus LEGO among adult enthusiasts has now dropped to less than 12%.

In terms of design, Chinese brick brands are taking a distinctly different path from LEGO. 

While LEGO continues to balance structural stability with playability, it often sacrifices visual accuracy in its models. Some sets are so abstracted that consumers must rely heavily on imagination to recognize the original subject. Upon closer inspection, visible gaps and stepped surfaces caused by part mismatches further detract from the overall appearance—enough to deter potential buyers at the point of purchase.

In contrast, Chinese manufacturers have focused their design efforts on stability and accuracy. Many teams work to strike an optimal balance between structural integrity and faithful visual representation. Some go so far as to create entirely new molds for custom parts that improve realism. While these custom parts greatly enhance visual fidelity, their low reusability across different sets leads to increased inventory and cash flow pressure for the manufacturers.

This is where content power has emerged as a new weapon for Chinese brands to overtake competitors on the curve. If custom parts are destined to have low reuse rates, why not imbue them with unique storytelling value?

Many teams are now embedding interactive narratives and digital features into their sets:

AR scanning to unlock hidden content; Programmable LED strips to recreate nighttime scenes; Companion web series and online challenges that turn the traditional build process into a full-circle experience: Build → Display → Remix → Share.  

As a result, players don’t just walk away with a physical model—they embark on a shareable, replayable experience. Limited editions, seasonal collaborations, and digital DLCs (Downloadable Content) further transform low-reuse parts into scarce collectibles.

This narrative-driven business model not only eases inventory pressure and accelerates cash turnover, but also amplifies brand presence across social media. When the content resonates, sales can rapidly outpace even licensed sets from major IPs. More importantly, the lifecycle of these original IPs often proves more sustainable in the long run. From this perspective, domestic brick brands are using a wide array of “content weapons” to bridge the gap with LEGO in component design. In fact, from a pure design standpoint, China’s flagship sets have already surpassed LEGO’s ceiling in terms of aesthetic completeness, functional complexity, and narrative depth—turning the mantra “first perfect the brick, then make it more than a brick” into a tangible reality.

In education and STEM integration, the gap between Chinese brands and LEGO lies in depth, not distance. Chinese building block manufacturers still trail LEGO in educational systems, but the difference stems more from “years of deep cultivation” than from “a distant starting point.” Over the past 40 years, LEGO has built an extensive ecosystem under its LEGO Education brand. Products like SPIKE Prime are now used in over 120 countries, covering more than 60,000 schools, with 1,200+ classroom-ready teaching modules.

The FIRST LEGO League (FLL) alone gathers 679,000 students per season, hosts 3,700 events across 110 countries, and forms a tightly integrated loop of kits–curriculum–competitions.

In comparison, Chinese manufacturers have made tremendous strides within just a decade. Locally developed programmable bricks and educational robots now serve 60,000 primary and secondary schools in China—already reaching a similar scale of distribution. In Guangzhou alone, driven by the rise of artificial intelligence education and youth robotics competitions, more than 2 million students across 1,519 schools are using Chinese-developed coding kits and robots. While the growth is impressive, a gap remains. LEGO still holds first-mover advantages in global competition ecosystems, teacher certification, and international deployment.

To catch up, Chinese brands are accelerating efforts on three fronts: teacher training, competitions, and lab infrastructure.

In the past two years, 32,000 IT educators have been certified, with a goal of reaching 100,000 by 2027.

In 2024, Ministry of Education-sanctioned competitions attracted 1.2 million students, with 70% of the kits sourced from Chinese brands.

For the first time, Chinese hardware topped RoboCup (an international robotics competition).

Labs integrating "bricks + coding + AI" have already launched in 143 schools, including 11 national demonstration labs.

With the scale of the domestic education market and the speed of content iteration, Chinese companies are rapidly transforming the "years of experience gap" into a "growth acceleration advantage.

"Cross-industry collaboration has long been LEGO’s strongest moat, with licensing deals across more than 400 major global IPs including F1, Disney, Star Wars, Adidas, and Nike. Chinese manufacturers entered the IP game only in recent years—but they’ve already made a remarkable leap from IP buyers to IP creators. On one hand, they're licensing international brands like Ultraman; on the other, they're diving deep into local cultural legends like the Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shan Hai Jing)—pursuing a dual development path that combines Chinese heritage with global IP appeal. Over the past three years, over 150 IP licensing agreements have been signed by domestic brands, with 70% focusing on original Chinese and “Guochao” (national trend) themes. These IP products have seen an annual sales growth rate exceeding 35%.So, while LEGO holds a vast library of global mega-IP, Chinese brands are increasingly using diverse cultural expressions and storytelling approaches to export the culture and history through bricks. If every brick can carry a story—and those stories can be refreshed and evolve—then the IP gap, like part tolerances, can also be gradually closed by time and creativity.

The gap between Chinese brick brands and LEGO still exists—but it is no longer insurmountable.

In precision manufacturing, Chinese brands are approaching LEGO’s gold standard of 5 μm part tolerance.

In cross-industry partnerships, they’ve progressed from basic licensing to building their own original IP ecosystems, combining international and domestic narratives.

In STEM education, they’re catching up with rapid content iteration, nationwide coverage, and strong government support, creating a uniquely Chinese model of speed and scale.

And in design, they’ve found a balance between visual fidelity and structural stability, with some flagship products already surpassing LEGO in complexity, completeness, and narrative depth.

All of this suggests the once “mountainous” gap has become a visible, approachable, and even overtakable track. If Chinese manufacturers maintain this momentum and continue to drive innovation, domestic brands are well-positioned to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with LEGO—and perhaps, in the not-so-distant future, achieve a true “corner overtaking.”