In 2011, geobra Brandstätter Group (Zirndorf / Germany; www.playmobil.de) increased sales by a slim 0.9% to EUR 564m (EUR 559m in 2010). Sales of the core "Playmobil" toy brand slipped from EUR 507m to EUR 505m – a fall of 0.4%. In contrast, the company lifted sales of its "Lechuza" planter range by 13% to EUR 45.6m. At the annual press conference ahead of the toy fair in Nuremberg / Germany (1-6 February 2012), managing director Andrea Schauer did not – as usual – reveal any earnings figures, but confirmed there was a profit.

Last year, geobra sold a record 55m Playmobil packs to the trade, a rise of 8%. Although the company succeeded in growing volume sales to the trade by 3% in its main market of Germany, sales by value were actually down by 2% on the previous year. Schauer was, however, at pains to point out that, although expectations had not been "fully met", the last financial year had "not gone badly". She blamed the small decline in sales on the newly launched products for impulse buyers. These product packages had been offered at recommended prices that were on average 7% lower than in the previous year, but had not yielded the hoped-for volume increases.

Geobra plans to invest EUR 81.5m to meet the increasingly important need for innovation in the toy business – equivalent to an increase of 40% compared with 2011. Some 91% of this sum (EUR 74.5m) will benefit sites in Germany, with EUR 23m to be put into new injection moulding machines alone. Technical manager Robert Benker explained that around 1,150 new mould units are to be ordered, of which around 40% will be built in the company's own mould manufacturing plants in Germany (Zirndorf) and Malta.

Only recently, the company opened a new injection moulding shop at its Dietenhofen / Germany site, which manufactures the planter range and large sections of the Playmobil line. It replaced an older part of the production facility and, with 80 new machines, increased the total number of machines to well over 400. The new units in the lower clamping force range were supplied by Sumitomo (SHI) Demag (Schwaig / Germany; www.sumitomo-shi-demag.eu), while those in the medium clamping force range were supplied by Wittmann Battenfeld (Kottingbrunn / Austria; www.battenfeld-imt.com) and Engel Austria (Schwertberg / Austria; www.engelglobal.com). The Battenfeld machines are geobra's first all-electric production units.

The plastics processing volume remained constant at around 25,000 t in 2011. Despite volume growth, Playmobil did not use more material, but focused more on the in-house recycling of production scrap such as ABS, PP and POM. The number of employees in the Brandstätter Group rose quite significantly in 2011, from 3,250 to 3,520. The group's production sites in Dietenhofen and Malta, the assembly plant in Cheb / Czech Republic, and another production site in Onil / Spain all benefited from the increase. In Germany, the workforce rose by nearly 6%, from 1,758 to 1,859.

For 2012, the group anticipates single-digit sales growth and positive earnings. It should be "slightly better than 2011", said Schauer.