Now it’s time to take a close look at a small, but competitive business making a difference for the Korean economy. This week’s spotlight is on Daesung Toys, a leading plastic toy maker in Korea. World-renowned toy company LEGO, whose name was derived from the Danish words “leg godt,” meaning “play well,” was born in 1932, in the middle of the Great Depression, when a carpenter made toys out of discarded wood pieces in his shop. There is a toy company in Korea that started off with love for children, similar to what the Lego founder had felt so many decades ago. That company is Daesung Toys, a respected name in the local plastic toy industry, and here’s one of its executives, Lee Si-hyeong, to tell us more about the company.

Daesung Toys make plastic cars, such as excavators, dump trucks, fire engines, and ambulances, as well as educational plastic blocks, similar to Lego pieces, which help develop children’s creativity. The company, located in Busan, is completely local. All of our products are designed and manufactured locally. Also, we employee people who have disabilities, because the company wanted to show children that there’s no obstacle that cannot be overcome if people with or without disabilities work together.


Since its establishment in 1974, Daesung Toys have provided hopes and dreams to children. The company has demonstrated through its toys that children have infinite potential that can be discovered and enhanced through play.



All the toys produced by Daesung Toys are plastic and non-toxic. Our products are divided largely into two categories – toy cars for toddlers between two and four years of age and educational blocks similar to Lego. Our toy cars, under the brand name of Motor Series, are already recognized globally for their high product quality and exported to many countries around the world. The blocks, unlike Lego and other static toy blocks, are moveable, which means that children can use their imagination to assemble the pieces and then they can make the finished piece move.

Daesung Toys’ signature lineups are the Motor Series and educational building blocks. The Motor Series features such steady-sellers as ambulances and fire trucks, as well as specialty vehicles like excavators. They are exact replicas of real ones, and all mechanisms are manually operated, except for the sirens and speakers through which children’s songs are played. Children can put themselves and their toy cars in various situations to cultivate their imagination and adaptability. In particular, their Bing Bing Blocks, which resemble cogs and wheels, are optimized to stimulate children’s curiosity. Since the blocks function like gears, children naturally learn about the geometric structures and mathematical principles of gears while assembling these blocks. Such efforts by Daesung Toys were rewarded in the form of awards and bigger export markets.

Daesung Toys has won numerous international awards for educational toys. The biggest customer for our Bing Bing Blocks is the United States. We have our own strengths, which set us apart from Lego products and have won us great reviews from our American buyers. Such recognition allowed us to further advertise our products and engage in more global marketing activities. Our Bing Bing Blocks are sold in various nationwide market franchises in America and through QVC, the multinational online shopping channel, which helped boost our revenue tremendously. I believe the export of Bing Bing Blocks to the U.S. will be quite impressive this year, we are expecting about two million dollars’ worth.

Leading child psychologists and education experts in the U.S. and the U.K. have recognized the value of Bing Bing Blocks. The building blocks are especially popular in the U.S., but are in the process of gaining wider acclaim in Europe, Japan and China as well. No other Korean toy maker has been applauded in the global market under its own brand name. The worldwide recognition is the result of Daesung Toys’ hard work.

Korean parents want the best for their children. Their demand for strong, safe toys was what made our toy cars so popular in the global market. Many competing toy companies came and went, and it’s true that some companies exploit children’s innocence for their own gain. But we at Daesung Toys hold on to the belief that children’s toys should be safe and of high quality. It was our promise to customers and all of our employees are well aware of that. That’s why we have focused on product safety and will keep working hard to uphold that value.

Daesung Toys stuck by its principle of using only the best materials, with no regard to cost, and maintaining high product quality. As a result of their hard work and unwavering commitment to product safety, Daesung Toys was named one of the world-class products chosen by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy in 2009. Although it has grown as a big name toy company representing Korea, Daesung Toys still remembers the mission it gave itself when it was first established.

We always question why we make toys. Korea’s long-standing practice of rote education has deprived children of imagination and creativity. We believe that children have infinite potential and imagination, and in order to draw out those inner abilities, we make toys that are educational and meaningful. That’s our company’s reason for existence and our vision.

Daesung Toys started out with a commitment to make something that children would really enjoy. The road this company has taken illustrates the vision and attitude a toy maker should have.