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Ravensburg (dpa) - Puzzling has established itself as a corona crisis hobby and has given the toy manufacturer Ravensburger a surge in growth.
The Group's sales rose by 20 percent to 632 million euros in 2020 compared to the previous year.
The toy manufacturer with the blue triangle sold 28 million puzzles worldwide - around 32 percent more than in the previous year, as the company announced on Wednesday in Ravensburg, Upper Swabia.
CEO Clemens Maier said that the year of the crisis was good.
According to Maier, Corona had triggered a little hype about the rather "quiet hobby".
The trend towards puzzling was also noticeable before the pandemic, said Maier.
From 2018 to 2019, puzzles sales increased by ten percent to 21 million.
In 2020, productions in three-shift operation were necessary to meet demand, said CFO Hanspeter Mürle.
Nevertheless, there were delivery bottlenecks.
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Nevertheless, Ravensburger does not want to call itself a Corona winner.
"We see it with all humility that we are in an industry that is less affected by the crisis than others," said Maier.
He did not want to make a forecast for the coming year.
"We assume that the trend towards games and puzzles will continue."
The group was also able to score points with board games in 2020.
Here, above all, classics were in demand, said Maier.
25 million games have been sold worldwide.
Business was particularly good in North America, Great Britain and Spain.
But they are also very satisfied with the growth in Germany.
The closings of the stationary trade were only moderately noticeable because the sales channels are wide.
A third of sales are online.
Things went well not only for Ravensburger games.
"The toy industry had a really good year in 2020," said the managing director of the German Association of the Toy Industry in Nuremberg, Ulrich Brobeil.
Almost all product groups would have done well.
The association wants to publish specific figures and results of a survey among toy manufacturers this Thursday.
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© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210127-99-193113 / 4
Information about Ravensburger