Building bricks and construction sets are staples in every child’s toy box. Parents appreciate the role they play in fostering creativity, problem-solving and engineering skills. And kids fall in love with the endless possibilities for building their own toys and playsets, making for one of the most addictive play patterns in the market today.

The LEGO Group’s iconic building bricks have been the unchallenged leader in the construction toy category for more than 75 years, decimating every other competitor—from classics like Tinkertoy, Meccano and building blocks, to entirely new building systems including K’Nex, Magna-Tiles, Nanoblock and KRE-O. And this leads to one big question: Is the construction toy category monopolized?

“That’s an understatement,” says Circana VP and US Toys advisor Juli Lennett. “LEGO has a 90% share of all building set revenue worldwide, which is unprecedented. There’s no other category where a single company has that kind of market share.”

To put this into perspective, LEGO generated US$10.85 billion in global revenue last year—a 13% increase from 2023 (US$9.65 billion). That only left about US$1 billion in category revenue on the table for the competition to fight over, with no single company gaining enough ground to pose a threat to LEGO’s seemingly untouchable empire.

What hurts even more for these other toycos is that LEGO’s hold on the category continues to grow; astoundingly, the Danish brick-maker has achieved double-digit annual revenue growth in each of the last five years.

“The pandemic was the kick-off point where LEGO sets just started [selling] like gangbusters because a lot of consumers were staying at home and looking for things to do away from their screens,” says Lennett.

Newer products that are keeping this momentum going include the LEGO Botanicals line of buildable flowers, primarily targeted at adult women—a whitespace for the company until this brand launched in 2021—along with several fresh licensed assortments for 2025. This year, LEGO is adding new SKUs for Formula 1 race cars, along with the first sets based on BBC Studios’ preschool megahit Bluey. And the company will also launch its first Pokémon licensed range in 2026.

Despite the overwhelming challenge of taking on such a dominant and entrenched incumbent, two major toycos—Jazwares with BLDR, and Mattel with Mattel Brick Shop—are aiming to disrupt the construction toy category this year. Lennett sees this as an exciting time for new LEGO alternatives to emerge, but she recognizes it will be a tall order for either manufacturer to carve out a slice of the market for themselves, let alone steal points away from the category’s leader.

Building a foundation
First to go toe-to-toe with LEGO in the brick-building ring is Jazwares, which launched its construction brand BLDR in January. The Florida-based toyco dropped 15 SKUs at Target and Amazon in the US to start, and this distribution has since expanded to include GameStop and Walgreens.

BLDR’s journey to market, which took just over two years, began when Jazwares brought former Mattel senior director of global brand marketing and communications Nicolas Allaire on board as VP of the brand.

“The brief was that Jazwares wanted to make construction sets that LEGO hadn’t done,” says Allaire. “The market opportunity we saw was that [LEGO] may have the top 20 properties locked up in their portfolio, but if you do some social [media] listening, you’ll see that there are a lot of fandoms and communities interested in getting into construction that haven’t made the jump yet because their favorite IPs are not in the category.”

From the outset, Jazwares has leveraged IPs in BLDR’s licensed portfolio that have never been featured in construction sets before, including Hello Kitty and Friends (fi ve SKUs); Adopt Me! (three SKUs); and two Crunchyroll anime series, Chainsaw Man (one SKU) and Jujutsu Kaisen (two SKUs). The brand’s other four lead products feature Squishmallow characters from Jazwares’ tentpole plush franchise.

While licensing plays a critical role in getting consumers to try out BLDR products, the team also focused on developing a unique building experience for customers currently in the LEGO ecosystem, says Allaire. With this objective in mind, Jazwares created a broader range of bricks, including rounder shapes to convey the kawaii aesthetic of Hello Kitty, new Squishbriks that mimic the feel of plush, and Quickbriks that let kids build up an action figure frame.

“It was essential for us to take the DNA of [a particular] brand or license and directly infuse it into our sets,” explains Allaire. “We’re trying to capture the infl ux of new builders in construction, and innovation like this shows that we’re not just trying to follow the same formula or building system established by competitors.”

With product development well underway, Jazwares turned its attention to pricing next. During the market-research phase, BLDR’s team discovered that LEGO is charging approximately US$1 for every 10 bricks in a set, and this price point has been steadily rising since the pandemic, according to Circana’s data. By comparison, Jazwares is aiming to offer 12 to 15 pieces for the same price.

“Construction toys have become a very expensive hobby,” says Allaire. “To compete here, you have to look at how to add more value while maintaining the same level of quality as your main competitor. Our core strategy at launch is to establish our foundation as an alternative toy option, and then grow from there.”

From teardown to rebuild
While Mattel isn’t a total newcomer to the construction toy category, its upcoming Mattel Brick Shop launch signals that the company is now using a different playbook to win some market share in this space.

Each Hot Wheels Brick Shop set comes bundled with a smaller toy replica that kids can display alongside their newly built vehicle

The toyco established an initial foothold when it acquired MEGA BLOKS for US$460 million in 2014. Since this purchase, the MEGA brand has focused on producing licensed building sets based on video game franchises including Pokémon, The Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Halo. But losing its tentpole Pokémon license to LEGO after its five-year deal term ended this year presented a new opportunity for Mattel to switch things up strategically.

“Moving forward, MEGA BLOKS will continue to be our preschool building system, while Mattel Brick Shop will spearhead our expansion into the rest of the category,” says Roberto Stanichi, head of vehicles and building sets. “Since this is different from the approach we had before, it was clear that we needed a new brand for a new era.”

The company unveiled Mattel Brick Shop at the Nuremberg International Toy Fair in January, following up with an announcement this month that the brand’s initial seven building sets will leverage its iconic Hot Wheels franchise—including a Custom ’68 Camaro, a Maserati MC20 and a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL—in a bid to appeal to a wide audience of multigenerational car fanatics.

Similar to Jazwares’ approach, Mattel is also experimenting with new types of materials to elevate its building experience, such as die-cast metal parts to replicate the chrome exhausts and engines commonly found on Hot Wheels vehicles. Each set will also include a matching Hot Wheels car, interchangeable tires, a sheet of decals and additional rebuild instructions to help builders customize the brick vehicle to their liking.

“Customization is a trend across not only the building sets category, but the toy industry altogether,” says Stanichi. “Collectors young and old are purchasing products to build and display at home, and they want it to feel like their own. This is core to our new brand.”

Lennett sees the two new construction category entrants as worthy competitors for LEGO, given that they’re entering the field with a wide array of evergreen brands to please every demographic possible. She also notes that LEGO’s grip on the preschool space has started to slip as the company refocuses its efforts on appealing to the growing kidult market with new sets costing more than US$100.

“It’ll be interesting to watch and see what happens in the category a year from now,” says Lennett. “Both Mattel and Jawares are looking to face off against LEGO across all demos, but they’re also on the lookout for whitespace areas where LEGO isn’t present—such as anime and plush—as new avenues to build up an audience and secure sales.”

This story originally appeared in Kidscreen’s Q2 2025 magazine issue.