Pop Mart does not pursue aggressive revenue growth; founder Wang Ning's wealth has shrunk by 72 billion.

Radar Finance, Produced by | Written by Ding Yu | Meng Shuai

“This year, we hope to achieve growth that is no less than 20%,” at the annual performance meeting, founder Wang Ning set the tone for 2026 for POP MART.

“We won’t pursue a particularly aggressive growth-at-the-expense-of-profit style,” Wang Ning emphasized: “How to help the company grow in a more long-term, stable, and healthy way remains our most core goal.”

And at last year’s August 2025 interim performance meeting, when Wang Ning discussed the full-year performance guidance, his tone was full of pride: “This year, we hope to reach RMB 20 billion (revenue), but it feels like reaching RMB 30 billion would be quite easy this year.”

From that kind of “full confidence” last year to the current slightly more “conservative” stance, Wang Ning’s shift quickly stirred up ripples across the capital markets, triggering a chain reaction.

On March 25, POP MART’s share price saw a “major plunge,” with a single-day drop of more than 22%. The next day, the company’s share price suffered another sharp setback, falling more than 10% in a single day to HK$150.7 per share, cutting the previous historical high reached last year in half.

In fact, purely from the performance perspective, POP MART delivered an extremely impressive set of results last year. In 2025, revenue grew 184.71% to RMB 37.12 billion, and the net profit attributable to shareholders surged 308.76% to RMB 12.776 billion.

Radar Finance reviewed and found that, based on recent years’ situation, POP MART’s revenue has achieved triple-digit growth for two consecutive years. Meanwhile, net profit attributable to shareholders has also posted a staggering nearly 11x increase compared with 2023.

Despite the rapid rise in performance, the capital market reacted fiercely to POP MART’s “downward adjustment of expectations.” In addition, the market has widely raised concerns about the company’s heavy reliance on LABUBU as an IP, as well as whether it can successfully build more hot IPs on par with LABUBU.

Worth noting is that, in the “2026 Hurun Global Rich List” released in March, Wang Ning’s family ranked 299th on the list with wealth of RMB 110 billion. However, compared with the RMB 182 billion net worth shown on the “2025 Hurun China Rich List,” their wealth shrank by RMB 72 billion in less than half a year.

Breakthrough overseas, becoming an important growth engine

Tianyancha shows that Beijing POP MART Cultural and Creative Co., Ltd. was established in 2010. It is a leading Chinese trend culture entertainment company focused on designing trend toys, incubating IP, and operating them.

In 2025—exactly POP MART’s 15th anniversary—it was also in that year that LABUBU under POP MART truly exploded globally, helping the company set new highs in its performance.

According to the annual performance report disclosed by the company on March 25, in 2025 POP MART’s overseas business delivered outstanding results, with overseas revenue almost accounting for “half of the company’s revenue.”

In 2025, although the China region brought POP MART revenue growth of 134.6% year over year to RMB 20.852 billion, its revenue contribution dropped from 68.2% in 2024 to 56.2%.

In the same period, overseas regions combined contributed RMB 16.268 billion in revenue to POP MART, up nearly 300% year over year. They accounted for 43.8% of the company’s total revenue, up about 12 percentage points year over year.

Among overseas markets, the Americas performed especially strongly. Revenue there surged 748.4% year over year to RMB 6.806 billion. Its revenue share jumped quickly from 6.2% to 18.3%, narrowing the gap with the company’s second-largest market, Asia-Pacific, to just 3.3 percentage points in revenue share.

And POP MART’s success in overseas markets is not accidental—it benefits from the company’s careful long-term planning and ongoing investment.

The report states that POP MART’s net proceeds raised from its listing in the Hong Kong stock market were HK$5.782 billion. By the end of last year, the company had used 30% of the funds (HK$1.735 billion) to allocate some funding for consumer reach channels and overseas market expansion plans. Among them, HK$434 million (7.5% of total proceeds) was used to expand business into overseas markets.

By the end of 2025, POP MART operated 630 stores across 20 countries globally, with a net increase of 109 stores for the full year. It also operated 2,637 robot shops, with a net increase of 165.

Among them, last year in the Chinese market, POP MART added a net 14 offline stores, bringing the total store count to 445.

In the same period, in the Asia-Pacific, Americas, and Europe markets, POP MART added net 31, 42, and 22 offline stores respectively, bringing store counts to 85, 64, and 36, respectively.

And the flourishing growth in overseas markets also injected strong momentum into POP MART’s earnings growth.

In 2025, POP MART recorded gross profit of RMB 26.765 billion, up 207.4% year over year; gross profit margin rose from 66.8% in 2024 to 72.1%.

In response, POP MART explained that the growth in gross profit was mainly due to an increase in the company’s revenue and control of sales costs.

As for the increase in gross profit margin, it is mainly attributable to the higher share of overseas sales. At the same time, the company adopted a flexible supply chain strategy to enhance its bargaining power with suppliers and concentrated purchasing toward core suppliers to reduce procurement costs.

Dependence on LABUBU intensifies, while the star character breaks out as a standout

Judging by the performance of each IP, the THE MONSTERS series to which LABUBU belongs still holds an unshakable position within POP MART.

In 2025, the THE MONSTERS series’ revenue for the first time surpassed RMB 10 billion, reaching RMB 14.161 billion and accounting for 38.1% of the company’s total revenue.

In the prior year, the THE MONSTERS series’ revenue was still at a scale of RMB 3.041 billion, accounting for 23.3% of the company’s total revenue.

Radar Finance noted that in the first half of last year, the THE MONSTERS series generated revenue of RMB 4.814 billion, accounting for 34.7% of the company’s total revenue.

Based on this calculation, in the second half of 2025, the THE MONSTERS series’ revenue was RMB 9.347 billion, accounting for 40.21% of the company’s second-half revenue. In other words, POP MART’s reliance on LABUBU is gradually deepening.

Among other IP lineups at POP MART, SKULLPANDA, CRYBABY, and the MOLLY series achieved year-over-year revenue growth, but their revenue shares fell to varying degrees.

Among them, MOLLY’s revenue share plunged from 16.1% in 2024 to 7.8%, and its ranking in terms of revenue contribution also fell from second place in 2024 to fourth place in 2025.

Worth noting is that, besides the THE MONSTERS series, the star character IP looks like a “dark horse” that suddenly emerged, showing especially eye-catching performance.

This new IP, signed and launched by POP MART in 2024, generated revenue of RMB 2.056 billion last year, up more than 1600% year over year, accounting for 5.5% of the company’s total revenue.

If we focus only on the performance in the second half of the year, the star character’s revenue reached RMB 1.666 billion, accounting for 7.2% of the company’s total revenue. That is up 4.4 percentage points quarter-on-quarter from the first half, with a strong growth momentum.

Judging by feedback from the offline market, the star character indeed has the potential to “catch fire.” According to the Qianjiang Evening News, earlier this year, POP MART’s online first release of a new series for the star character IP—the “Flashing Star” series blind boxes—featured plush keychains at 89 yuan per item and a gel-plush figurine gift box priced at 899 yuan.

Within seconds of going on sale, the series quickly sold out. Discussions on social platforms were also rapidly flooded. On second-hand platforms, it is basically resold at a premium of 50%-80%, and hidden versions are resold at prices as high as three times. The resold set prices have been speculated up to the thousand-yuan range.

But at the same time, the former top-tier LABUBU shows signs of “cooling off.” On second-hand platforms, the prices of some items have fallen sharply, with some even dropping below their original issue prices.

In addition, LABUBU’s “High Energy in Front” series gel-plush keychains—previously extremely difficult to get—are now easily and directly purchasable.

Wang Ning actively applies the “brakes,” continuing to build a diversified footprint

“2025 is the fastest-growth year since POP MART’s listing, and also a year with heavy pressure. It’s like a rookie racecar driver being quickly pulled onto an F1 track,” at the March 25 earnings meeting, POP MART’s Chairman and CEO Wang Ning said.

Wang Ning added: “Many people worry whether LABUBU is always on-trend and whether it will have big fluctuations. What we feel relieved about is that we see it becoming more and more people’s way of life. We still look forward to the future and are also very confident.”

When discussing the development plan for 2026, Wang Ning also used the F1 analogy: “We hope that 2026 is the year to come into the pit stop to refuel, swap tires, and get things going again. After an era of ultra-high-speed development, we hope to pause and adjust a bit. All enterprises need to go through cycles. All enterprises need to discover problems that need to be solved faster than others during high-speed development, and be able to clearly know the direction of future improvements.”

According to POP MART’s Chief Growth Officer Wen De, going forward the company will build a diversified business layout around IP. By extending IP into multiple areas such as consumer products services and experiences, and digital entertainment, it aims to turn POP MART into an IP-centered trend culture entertainment group.

POP MART’s Chief Operating Officer Si De said that LABUBU will roll out its 4.0 series and an artist collaboration series in the second half of the year. From a mid-to-long-term planning perspective, LABUBU will also have content formats such as picture books and films.

It is worth noting that not long ago, on March 19, POP MART and Sony Pictures jointly announced the latest progress on the LABUBU movie. The two sides will work together to bring THE MONSTERS series—the company’s flagship IP—onto the big screen.

It is understood that the movie is set to have Paul King, who previously directed the “Paddington Bear” series and the box-office hit “Wonka,” serve as director and producer. THE MONSTERS creator and artist Long Jia Sheng will also be deeply involved in the film’s creation.

In addition, at the earnings meeting, POP MART also disclosed that it will launch derivative small home appliance products centered on IP in April and sell them on e-commerce platforms such as JD.com.

As early as June last year, POP MART began “recruiting” for the small home appliance business. According to Jiemian News, at that time POP MART sought talent across recruitment platforms, including small home appliance purchasing managers, home appliance quality experts, and R&D engineers.

The salary range for these positions was between 12,000 yuan and 45,000 yuan. Work locations are spread across multiple cities, such as Shenzhen, Dongguan, Shanghai, and Beijing.

Some roles explicitly required applicants to have relevant experience with refrigerators, coffee machines, breakfast machines, or electric kettles, and stated that this project is a major investment project at the A+ level or above.

Also, according to Tianyancha, on August 19 of last year, the business scope of Beijing POP MART Cultural and Creative Co., Ltd. was changed, with new additions including retail of daily-use home appliances, sales of household appliances, and sales of daily necessities.

In addition, earlier on September 2023, POP MART’s POP MART City Park built in Beijing officially opened to visitors.

At this earnings meeting, Si De also disclosed that the second phase of the POP MART park is undergoing in-depth design. It is expected to start construction in 2027 and add scenes featuring SKULLPANDA and the star character.

Taken together, it is not hard to see from the company’s series of strategic deployments that POP MART is carefully building an all-round commercial network around IP.

After Wang Ning actively hit the “brakes,” what kind of answer POP MART will deliver again for 2026? Radar Finance will continue to pay attention.