Popmart's Wang Ning Discusses Labubu and 2025: Like a Novice Entering the F1 Racecourse

What management shortcomings does AI · Wang Ning’s F1 analogy reveal about the company?

“Like a rookie race car driver suddenly thrown into F1 racing. At extremely high speeds, both the driver and the car face enormous pressure; but the process is truly exciting, full of gains, experiences, and lessons.”

Today (March 25), Pop Mart founder Wang Ning used a vivid analogy during the earnings presentation to describe the company’s fiery 2025.

The capital market is always looking for the next great consumer miracle. Labubu, with Pop Mart, has experienced this fantastic journey and has driven the collectible toy industry through an unprecedented valuation re-rating. Skeptics believe blind boxes are just a short-lived trend, and the vitality of IPs is often questioned by investors. Pop Mart has been working hard to break this prejudice.

On March 25, Pop Mart released its 2025 results. Full-year revenue reached 37.12 billion yuan, up 184.7%; net profit attributable to the owner was 12.78 billion yuan, up 308.8%; THE MONSTERS series IP contributed 14.16 billion yuan, accounting for 38.1% of total revenue.

Now, investors are not worried about whether it once ran fast enough, but whether it can maintain its pace after running so fast.

Over the past two years, Pop Mart’s stock price has almost become a barometer of Hong Kong’s sentiment towards consumer stocks. In 2024, Pop Mart’s stock surged approximately 360%, significantly outperforming the market; by August 2025, the company’s market value temporarily exceeded that of traditional toy giants like Mattel and Sanrio.

But by 2026, the market began to worry about how long the Labubu craze could last, with the stock price falling about 40% from its August 2025 peak. This company is both one of the most dazzling stories in a sluggish consumer era and one of the market’s most feared cases of a viral hit backfiring.

The driver of this position is precisely Labubu. In 2025, the THE MONSTERS series revenue reached 14.16 billion yuan, up 365.7%. Meanwhile, plush toys earned 18.71 billion yuan, up 560.6%, accounting for over half of total revenue.

In other words, Labubu is not just selling well; it has also changed Pop Mart’s product structure, profit structure, and even the pace of overseas expansion. Stores in the US, Europe, and Southeast Asia have lines of customers; events like the Thanksgiving parade in New York, Paris exhibitions, celebrity endorsements, and social media virality have turned an IP originally belonging to the collectible toy scene into a global pop culture phenomenon.

The question then arises. What Labubu truly needs to guard against is not imitators, but the fleeting nature of the trend itself. By October 2025, as resale prices in the second-hand market declined, investors began to worry about demand peaking. The current market debate is no longer whether Labubu is hot, but whether it can transform from a passing fad into a stable consumer habit.

Pop Mart’s management clearly recognizes this. During the March 25 earnings call, Wang Ning described 2025 as a rookie race car driver suddenly pulled into F1 racing, with extremely high speeds, an exciting process, but immense pressure on both the driver and the car; 2026, on the other hand, is more like entering a pit stop—refueling, tire changes, organizing and system tuning—before continuing on the track.

This analogy resonates because it does not shy away from Pop Mart’s most real situation: explosive popularity has amplified the company’s challenges—gaps in communication, backend coordination, cross-region management, logistics replenishment, and global synchronized launches—all exposed at once.

The next phase of Labubu’s operations will no longer be just about selling more blind boxes. According to management, this year, Labubu will continue to increase investment in R&D and operations. In the short term, product launches include a collaboration with FIFA World Cup, a genuine 4.0 series defined internally for the second half of the year, and a major artist collaboration set to launch by year-end.

In marketing, Labubu will continue to appear at major global events, including the World Cup this summer; medium to long-term plans focus on content and offline experiences, such as reprinting picture books, preparing a fourth installment, advancing a Sony movie project to the script stage, and further strengthening Labubu’s presence in theme parks. Wang Ning reiterated that Labubu is like a gold mine, and its value is just beginning to be tapped.

Pop Mart is also working to tell the market that it is not just a collectible toy company. In 2025, IPs like SKULLPANDA, CRYBABY, MOLLY, DIMOO, and Star People have already gained significant scale. The company disclosed that, aside from THE MONSTERS, SKULLPANDA earned 3.54 billion yuan, CRYBABY 2.93 billion yuan, MOLLY 2.90 billion yuan, DIMOO 2.78 billion yuan, and Star People 2.06 billion yuan.

Management emphasizes that in the Chinese market, even with the popularity of Labubu-related products, their contribution to sales is only about one-third, with the remaining 70% coming from multiple IPs and categories. This is very important—it means Pop Mart needs to prove to the capital market that it has not just hit upon a super symbol, but has developed a comprehensive IP operation methodology.

Overseas expansion is the most critical testing ground for this methodology. In 2025, Pop Mart’s overseas revenue reached 16.27 billion yuan, up 291.9%, accounting for nearly 44% of total revenue. Among them, Asia-Pacific revenue was 8.01 billion yuan, the Americas 6.81 billion yuan, and Europe and others 1.45 billion yuan; the Americas saw an astonishing 748.4% year-over-year growth.

During the earnings presentation, management revealed that overseas expansion has shifted from a China-centric approach to a model where four regional hubs radiate outward, moving from capital cities to second- and third-tier cities, tourist destinations, and airports. The US market, for example, saw sales of over 800 million yuan in 2024, reaching 6.8-6.9 billion yuan in 2025, with more than 100 stores expected by 2026, including flagship stores in Times Square and Fifth Avenue in New York opening in Q4.

For Pop Mart, overseas is no longer just about exporting Chinese hits; it’s about establishing local stores, memberships, content, live streams, and artist networks to form a second growth curve.

This is also why Pop Mart increasingly describes itself not just as a collectible toy company but more like a consumer and entertainment group centered on IP. During the earnings call, management repeatedly mentioned groupization. Besides core business, the Theme Park Phase 1 project is expected to be completed by summer 2026, Phase 2 is already in detailed design, with construction expected to start in 2027; new businesses like desserts, accessories, small appliances, and themed stores are also expanding.

The market remains cautious despite the impressive financial results, mainly because of concerns over execution risks in new ventures like theme parks, licensing, and film projects. In other words, the capital market is no longer satisfied with just valuing a blind box leader; it is beginning to evaluate Pop Mart by the standards of Disney-style IP companies, which are undoubtedly more demanding.

From a broader industry perspective, Pop Mart is not just in a simple toy track. Some comments attribute this wave of enthusiasm to young people seeking cheaper happiness and substituting traditional luxury consumption—an emotional consumption category. As a result, the core competition in the collectible toy industry is not just design ability or distribution channels, but whether short-term emotional pulses can be sedimented into longer-term repurchase and companionship.

Viral hits can generate buzz, but content, scenes, and organizational capabilities are what extend the lifecycle.

Therefore, after Labubu cools down, the real question Pop Mart must answer is not whether this IP can stay hot for another year, but a more difficult one: when a super IP emerges from social media frenzy, can the company turn it into a more stable consumer brand, a more complete worldview, and develop a set of capabilities that can be replicated for the next IP?

Wang Ning said that in 2026, the company needs to focus on refueling and tire changes. For Pop Mart, this may be the most crucial step—because only by learning to repair the car after high-speed operation can it continue to move forward.