new (sort of) markets

[cachalote]

http://app.emaze.com/@AOCOLZWI/playmobil---latin-america#1
GERARDO YEPEZ.
hire this man.
he seems to know what he is talking about.

build a new a new factory for an entire continent, halfway between north and south.

understand that it will not be with light pink figures you will dazzle mexico or brazil (or california or florida).
grow in revenues. 
grow-up. 
(thank you rasputin)

[playmofire]

Playmobil's experience with producing abroad has not been a good one in the past.

[cachalote]

well playmofire, czech republic, malta and spain are also abroad form germany.
no problems there, i think. 

maybe that's because they are owned by geobra.

in the past, in south america, there were problems in brazil and mexico and argentina, with trol, estrela, mattel, aurimat and antex factories.
all theses companies had their own factories.
they all produced other plastic toys with a different quality standard.

experience means you've tried something already.
so, experience tells geobra not to trust south american partners.
bur it doesn't tell them that having their own factory in america is a bad idea.
volkswagen has 7 factories in brazil (the 1st one opened in 1959) and 2 in argentina.
sometimes, instead of direct-experience you can rely on someone-else-also-interested-in-selling-good-things experience.
volkswagen has 7 factories in brazil (the 1st one opened in 1959) and 2 in argentina.

get them on the phone - there's even no language barrier. 

[Baron Marshall]

Lego has a huge factory in Mexico that produces most of the American market sets. In case anyone is curious.  http://www.lego.com/en-us/AboutUs/news-room/2014/june/2014-mexico-factory

[cachalote]

other markets...

   as a reference, germany:
81 milion: population
33.3 dollars: median household income (gallup)

but what i am talking about is:

   japan:
126 million (50% more than germany)
34.8 dollars (higher than germany)

   south korea:
51 million (more than spain, less than france)
40.9 dollars (much higher than germany)

in both cases we are speaking of democratic countries with high indexes in human development, ease to do business and democracy.
both countries are highly industrialized and very highly accustomed on importing and exporting goods.
combined, they represent 1/3 of the population of the european union.
2 languages to print in the boxes (3, if you add english). 

[Ismene]

They don't need to produce abroad to reach overseas markets. There is a market for Made in Europe throughout the world. They could work on marketing though.

[cachalote]

you are right ismene, geobra can stay at germany forever.
but, int their new foundation-we-are-not-on-this-just-for-the-profit organizatiom they can expand all over the world.
and i am sure that they can share their wealth by creating jobs and know-how in the east asia.
i am sure they have a good potential market with a lot of consumers that can afford playmobil in NE asia - as the numbers seem to show.
maybe it would only be fair to produce what they could sell there in the vicinity.
and i am sure there are good opportunities to do business there.

[cachalote]

we can add some countries to japan and south korea.
2 small democracies in SE.
they have another advantage, they use mandarin as a language.
as soon as chine meets some standards as a country, the boxes will already be ready for them.
so, we now have 3 languages printed on the boxes: japanese, korean, mandarin.

   singapore
5.5 million
32,5 dollars (almost the same as germany)

   taywan
23 million
32,8 dollars (almost the same as germany)

[cachalote]

maybe hong kong can be antecipated, in the middle of the journey between NE and SE asia.

   hong kong
25 million
35,4 dollars (higher than germany)

still there are a lot of countries missing, with low average incomes, but not that far from brazil...