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Copenhagen - Toy maker Lego said on Wednesday it tripled its earnings in 2006, reporting its second straight annual profit after pulling itself out of a financial crisis by focusing on its core business.
The maker of the colourful versatile plastic bricks said net profit rose to 1.43bn kroner ($251.7m), from 505m kroner in 2005.
Pre-tax profit meanwhile climbed to 1.56bn kroner, from 456m kroner a year earlier.
Sales rose by 11% to 7.82bn kroner, owing largely to the relaunch of its classic products such as Lego City, Lego Duplo and Lego Technic which were more successful than expected.
Lego, a family-owned company created in 1932, has reported only four annual losses but all in the past 10 years: in 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2004.
The losses came amid fierce competition from high-tech and electronic products such as game consoles and computer games, which the group tried to combat by diversifying its product range to include video films and animated productions among other things.
In 2005, the owner of the company, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, decided to cut staff and sell off the group's non-core activities, including its Legoland parks around the world, to focus on colourful bricks in a bid to improve earnings.
"The year 2006 was a particularly satisfactory year. It shows that Lego products are full of life, and that our strategy of concentrating on our core business is correct," managing director Joergen Vig Knudstorp told reporters.