POP MART's shares opened higher in early trading on May 13th, with the direct catalyst being the first-quarter business data disclosed the previous night: overall revenue increased by 75% to 80% year-on-year, with the Chinese market growing 100% to 105% and online channels surging 150% to 155%. However, the swift market reaction is not solely due to "growth exceeding expectations." A more critical shift is underway: the market is re-evaluating POP MART. It is no longer seen merely as a consumer company selling blind boxes, trendy toys, and store displays, but as a content asset platform that is integrating IP, emotional consumption, global channels, and supply chains.
New consumer brands often experience a cycle of explosive popularity, expansion, inventory pressure, user fatigue, and subsequent valuation declines. The signal from POP MART's Q1 data is precisely that it has not remained trapped in a hit-driven cycle. Growth in China has re-accelerated, overseas expansion continues, and new business formats like theme parks, films, and confectionery are being incorporated by institutions into its future growth framework. The question POP MART must now answer is whether it can transform a single hit into a system capable of continuously generating IP and driving repeat purchases.
Specifically, the company disclosed that for Q1 2026, overall revenue grew 75% to 80% year-on-year. Revenue in China increased 100% to 105% year-on-year, with offline channels up 75% to 80% and online channels soaring 150% to 155%. Overseas, the Asia-Pacific region grew 25% to 30%, the Americas grew 55% to 60%, and Europe & other regions grew 60% to 65%.
In the current consumer environment, these figures are quite impactful. Many brands are still engaged in price wars, channel battles, and deep discounting, with profit margins eroded by promotions. Online customer acquisition costs are rising, while offline store rents and labor costs remain difficult to reduce. For most consumer companies, the greatest fear is not an inability to sell, but "selling without profit."
POP MART's uniqueness lies in the fact that it sells not standardized functionality, but emotion and identity. Trendy toys are not a necessity, but this positioning allows the company to avoid the low-price trap of functional consumption. Consumers buying LABUBU, MOLLY, or SKULLPANDA are not merely purchasing a figurine; they are buying an aesthetic label, community language, social currency, and the thrill of collecting. Once this logic is established, price sensitivity becomes significantly lower than for ordinary consumer goods. This is the true value behind the re-acceleration of growth in China. It is not solely driven by a low overseas base or a single online sales push. Offline sales are still growing, and online is growing even faster, indicating that user engagement remains strong and channel efficiency is improving. Particularly, the 150% to 155% online growth suggests POP MART is no longer entirely reliant on store foot traffic; it is developing stronger capabilities in content marketing, community dissemination, and online repurchase.
Previously, the market's greatest concern about POP MART was whether "trendy toys would cool down rapidly after a wave of hits, like many new consumer brands." This data provides at least a temporary counterargument: demand is not confined to a short cycle; users are still buying, channels are still performing, and IP popularity is still being monetized.
However, one cannot view this solely optimistically. In 2025, POP MART already experienced a typical high-growth controversy. Reports indicated its 2025 revenue grew 185% to 37.12 billion yuan and profit grew 308% to 12.78 billion yuan, yet its stock price fell sharply post-earnings. The market was concerned about a Q4 slowdown, a reduced dividend payout ratio, and uncertainties surrounding the expansion of theme parks and licensing businesses. The most significant aspect of this Q1 growth is not that "POP MART is hot again," but that it has demonstrated a renewed growth trajectory following last year's high base and high scrutiny.
POP MART is most easily misunderstood when the outside world views it as a "blind box company." Blind boxes are merely a transaction format; IP is the asset. Stores are just channels; emotional consumption is the demand. The truly valuable part of POP MART is not how well a single SKU sells, but its ability to continuously incubate IP, operate content, create a sense of scarcity, and monetize these IPs repeatedly through global channels.
The explosive popularity of LABUBU brought significant growth to POP MART, but also new market concerns. Reports noted that in 2025, LABUBU-related sales reached 14.2 billion yuan, accounting for about 38% of POP MART's total revenue, up from 23% in 2024. This is a key reason for investor concern about the company's over-reliance on a single character.
This concern is not unfounded. The most attractive aspect of the IP business is that a hit can deliver超额 profits; the most dangerous aspect is that a hit can掩盖 structural issues. If a company has only one super IP, its valuation becomes hostage to that hit cycle. When popularity is rising, the market is willing to assign high multiples; when it wanes, capital quickly shifts to a "not sustainable" narrative. POP MART must now prove it is not merely riding the LABUBU wave, but can build a robust IP matrix beyond LABUBU. This requires three core capabilities.
First, IP incubation capability. The barrier to entry in the trendy toy industry may seem low, but the real difficulty lies in aesthetic judgment and character longevity. Whether an image can be remembered by users and evolve from a figurine into an emoji, fashion element, space decor, or social symbol depends not simply on drawing a cute character, but on the持续 capture of young consumers' psychology.
Second, content operation capability. If an IP remains only on the shelf, its lifecycle will be short. POP MART's extensions into theme parks, films, confectionery, and exhibitions are essentially about adding stories, scenarios, and engagement time to its IPs. Recent analysis also noted the company will enhance精细化 operations in 2026 and expand innovative formats like parks, films, and confectionery to build momentum for overseas markets and the IP matrix.
Third, supply chain capability. Trendy toys cannot generate profit on good design alone. When a hit emerges, production capacity must keep up, quality must be stable, channel allocation must be managed, inventory must not spiral out of control, and overseas operations must address delivery, compliance, and localized production. Reports in January indicated POP MART is expanding its global supply chain, partnering with manufacturing partners in Mexico, Cambodia, and Indonesia to add capacity beyond China and Vietnam to support global demand. This capability is often underestimated. Many consumer brands fail after a hit not due to lack of demand, but because their supply chain cannot keep up—slow restocking, chaotic inventory, weak quality control, and失控 channel pricing. For POP MART to build its IP business into a global platform, the supply chain is the foundation.
POP MART is not competing on toys; it is competing on the "industrialized replication of emotion." Whoever can integrate artistic inspiration, user aesthetics, supply chain production, global channels, and content operation into a cohesive system can potentially turn hits into lasting assets.
If POP MART's capital story were merely about consumer recovery, the market would not afford it such high attention. What truly makes capital willing to reprice it is its possession of globalization capabilities that few Chinese consumer brands have. Q1 growth of 55% to 60% in the Americas and 60% to 65% in Europe & other regions, while lower than in China, remains a standout pace in the context of Chinese brands going global.
Many Chinese brands going global are essentially exporting supply chains, prices, and channels; POP MART is closer to exporting cultural symbols. It sells not cheaper toys, but IP, aesthetics, and emotional value incubated by a Chinese company. This difference defines its valuation potential.
Consumer goods companies are typically evaluated on revenue, profit margins, store efficiency, and inventory turnover; IP companies are also evaluated on character longevity, content extensibility, licensing potential, global fan networks, and derivative development. If POP MART can consistently extend its trendy toy IPs into films, parks, games, home goods, confectionery, and licensing partnerships, the market will not view it solely through the lens of a toy company.
However, this valuation shift also invites stricter scrutiny. First, IP lifecycle remains the biggest variable. LABUBU is highly popular, but no single IP can maintain an upward trajectory forever. POP MART needs more new IPs to take the baton; it cannot let its revenue structure become overly dependent on one character. Second, overseas expansion is not a simple复制 of the Chinese experience. Trendy toy consumption culture, store efficiency, social media传播方式, licensing systems, and user aesthetics in欧美 markets differ from those in Asia. POP MART can use LABUBU to gain知名度, but long-term success will depend on localized teams, content partnerships, and channel quality. Third, competition will intensify. MINISO, TOP TOY,布鲁可, overseas本土 toy brands, and film/TV IP licensors are all entering the emotional consumption and collectible toy market. POP MART's advantages are its first-mover status and IP pool, but the pressure comes from the industry continually attracting new players. Fourth, the valuation is no longer cheap. Once the market prices POP MART as a global IP platform, it will demand a more stable IP matrix and a clearer overseas profit model than from an ordinary consumer company. High growth can drive valuation up, but high volatility can also amplify valuation contractions.
What should be most closely watched for POP MART's future is not单季度 revenue growth rate, but four indicators: whether non-LABUBU IPs can接力; whether overseas stores and online channels can continue to improve efficiency; whether new businesses like parks, films, and confectionery can contribute to content asset沉淀; and whether the global supply chain can maintain inventory and price秩序 amid expansion. These indicators will determine whether POP MART is a "trendy toy company that constantly creates hits" or a "platform company capable of operating IP across cycles."
POP MART's矛盾 is intriguing. It must rely on hits to open markets, yet must摆脱 dependence on any single hit. It was built on trendy toys, yet cannot be seen forever as a trendy toy retailer. It needs to maintain a sense of scarcity while supporting the scale demands of global expansion. This is the core conflict in the market's repricing of POP MART. Its opportunity lies here, and so does its risk. A hit can thrust the company into the spotlight, but it is platform capabilities that determine how long it can stay there.
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