Lego's Chinese unit has revealed that it has renewed its agreement with Chinese tech giant Tencent to expand its digital footprint in the country. Lego Group is apparently betting on the further success of its digital products, such as its social networking platform for children under 13 called Lego Life.

Lego Group has found a lot of success with its brick-and-mortar stores in China. The company hopes to further expand on that success with the launch of new digital products that will go hand-in-hand with its physical products. The latest announcement of a renewed partnership with Tencent is an update of a similar announcement made by both companies last month.

As part of their deepened collaboration, both companies revealed that they will be working in key areas such as video games and digital platforms over the next two years. This will include the explorations of new opportunities in the digital social community space.

The senior vice-president of Lego Group and general manager of Lego China, Paul Huang, mentioned that the collaborative effort would focus mainly on creating child-safe online platforms that will take on the same design philosophy of Lego Life.

Lego and Tencent currently have a standing strategic partnership, which was established back in 2018. The partnership resulted in the launch of Lego Video Zone, which was made available on Tencent Video in 2018 during the annual Children's Day in China. So far, the platform has garnered more than 2.1 billion views.

Last year, Tencent and Lego started work on a sandbox video game called the Lego Cube. The game itself used Tencent's proprietary parental guidance platform, which ensured a safe and healthy gaming environment for children. Globally, a third of Internet users are people under the age of 18. Both Tencent and Lego are aiming to capitalize on that fact with the rollout of new digital products.

The expansion of the company's digital footprint in China is part of its much wider goal to reach more children around the world, be it through its brick-and-mortar locations or its digital platforms. Lego CEO Niels Christiansen previously mentioned during the company's 2019 financial report that China has become a strategic growth market.

 So far, the company has posted strong double-digit growth in consumer sales. As of the moment, the company has over 140 physical stores in the 35 Chinese cities. Lego plans to further accelerate its investments in China in the coming years. By the end of 2020, Lego expects to have 220 stores in China.