Labubu Is Now a Global Money-Making Machine. But for How Long?

Bloomberg

Aug 26

Manna Wang has long sent her top clients trendy luxury gifts, from Gucci scarves to Coach watches. In recent months, however, Labubus became her go-to — until they sold out.Desperate, the Hong Kong ...

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In recent months, however, Labubus became her go-to — until they sold out.Desperate, the Hong Kong ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-08-25/labubu-is-now-a-global-money-making-machine-can-it-become-the-next-disney\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n","source":"lsy1584095487587","html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Labubu Is Now a Global Money-Making Machine. 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But for How Long?\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2025-08-26 14:30 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-08-25/labubu-is-now-a-global-money-making-machine-can-it-become-the-next-disney><strong>Bloomberg</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>Manna Wang has long sent her top clients trendy luxury gifts, from Gucci scarves to Coach watches. In recent months, however, Labubus became her go-to — until they sold out.Desperate, the Hong Kong ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-08-25/labubu-is-now-a-global-money-making-machine-can-it-become-the-next-disney\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"09992","symbol_name":"泡泡玛特","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-08-25/labubu-is-now-a-global-money-making-machine-can-it-become-the-next-disney","article_id":"1141280531","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":[],"rights":{"source":"lsy1584095487587","url":"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-08-25/labubu-is-now-a-global-money-making-machine-can-it-become-the-next-disney","rn_cache_url":null,"directOrigin":true},"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1141280531","pubTimestamp":1756189800,"columns":[],"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"lsy1584095487587","name":"Bloomberg"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"A booming ecosystem for the small, toothy toys is spawning everything from bespoke doll couture to meme coins.","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"bloomberg.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"09992":"泡泡玛特"},"translate_title":"Labubu现在是一台全球赚钱机器。但是能持续多久呢？","themeId":"5d4798a206c9647801fbe0c7721b2338","isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"09992":1.1},"content_text":"Manna Wang has long sent her top clients trendy luxury gifts, from Gucci scarves to Coach watches. In recent months, however, Labubus became her go-to — until they sold out.Desperate, the Hong Kong insurance agent paid a college student HK$500 ($64) a day to track down Pop Mart International Group Ltd.’s plush toys, whatever the cost. One day in June, he found six Labubus retailing at HK$99, resold to her for around HK$600 each.“That’s the price I’m willing to pay,” Wang said. “Every time my clients receive the latest version of a Labubu blind box, I hear some happy, excited screaming from either themselves or their kids. They are so excited — everyone desperately wants one but they’re out of stock.”Labubus are more than plush toys — they’ve become a vast global marketplace and for some, a hot investment. Collectors from the US to Pop Mart’s home market in China are betting the small, toothy dolls will skyrocket in value on the resale market, where people hawk them at a markup, propelled by successes such as an ultra-rare edition fetching $150,000 at a Beijing auction.A booming Labubu ecosystem is spawning everything from bespoke doll clothing to meme coins. People worldwide are finding creative ways to profit beyond reselling, including renting out their dolls by the day or being paid to hunt for new drops.Labubu merchandise for sale at a store at the Pop Land theme park, operated by Pop Mart, in Beijing.The dolls have become a global craze thanks to their mystery blind box packaging — which encourages repeat purchases. Among videos of influencers showing off Labubus are some of the world’s biggest celebrities, from actor Brad Pitt to Blackpink’s Lisa. Pop Mart also sells exclusively through its own stores, driving collectors to the resale market when they sell out.“There is a secondhand market that facilitates all this trading,” said Mandy Hu, an associate marketing professor and director at the Centre for Consumer Insights at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “People even as young as teenagers, they trade Labubus as an investment and they think that they can make money off of collecting those dolls.”Limited-edition Labubus on display at the Yongle Auction office in Beijing.The mania has propelled millennial founder and chief executive officer Wang Ning’s fortune to $26.2 billion, a 243% surge so far this year alone, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Pop Mart — which started with just one Beijing storefront a decade ago — now has a market capitalization of around $55 billion.But is Pop Mart China’s answer to intellectual property giants like Walt Disney Co., or a passing fad? Some analysts see echoes of 1990s Beanie Babies mania, when the plush toys fetched huge sums before their market collapsed.“I think it’s very likely to go the same way as the Beanie Babies, but maybe faster, because of course with the Internet information flows faster,” said Christophe Spaenjers, a finance professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who studies collectibles markets. “There’s probably going to be a handful that are going to hold some value, but most of them are worthless in terms of market value, resale value.”Others highlight Pop Mart’s weak narrative depth. Unlike Disney or Japanese franchise Pokémon, Labubu lacks a rich backstory or media extensions.“Pokémon has television shows, movies, it has stores, it’s got soft toys, it’s got a whole variety of different things,” said Gemma Dale, Head of Investor Behavior for National Australia Bank Ltd.’s online investing platform nabtrade, “all feeding the hype over time. To extend Labubu to that is going to be incredibly challenging.”Labubu EconomyStill, Labubus differ from past toy fads. They command global social media attention, fuel repeat purchases with their blind box packaging, and attract an investment-savvy generation primed by meme stocks. Collectible toy markets have shown resilience before, from some Mattel Inc. Barbie dolls to limited edition Topps baseball cards and Star Wars toys.Other unlikely assets have also become stores of value in the Internet era, from Bitcoin to non-fungible tokens and even some vinyl records and cassettes.For now, the Labubu frenzy shows no signs of fading. When CEO Wang announced a new mini Labubu last week, Pop Mart shares hit a record.Labubu box packaging at a souvenir store in Krakow, Poland.On eBay Inc., users globally searched “Labubu” in the collectibles category more than 450 times per hour in May. On StockX, Pop Mart sales were up 748% in the first half of 2025, compared to all of 2024, making it the top collectibles brand. On average, Labubu products sell at a 23% premium on StockX.“Pop Mart is breaking records every single month in terms of its volume,” said StockX’s senior marketplace director Drew Haines, who himself keeps a Labubu dangling from his backpack.Xiaolei Wang, a 26-year-old Beijing programmer, has made about $7,000 since last year buying and reselling Labubus — some at a 70% markup.“The frenzy over Labubu may run out soon too, so it’s a bit risky now to buy at a premium for resale purpose or stock up a lot,” she said. “But of course, don’t hesitate if you can get it at the original retail price.”Analysts say Pop Mart amplifies scarcity, driving collectors to resellers like Xiaolei Wang by limiting how many toys are released — a centuries-old tactic used to sell everything from diamonds to airline tickets. They use the strategy “to keep up the price and make people feel like it’s so precious, and they want to have it and must have it,” said CUHK’s Hu.Labubu resale prices on second-hand trading platforms including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Xianyu started to drop by as much as 50% from mid-June — following record highs in prior months — after Pop Mart increased supply in its Chinese official online platforms and brick-and-mortar stores, reports from local media including 21st Century Business Herald said.Merchandise for the Mokoko character at Pop Land.On Alibaba’s Taobao, the pop toy retail shop I WANT — where Pop Mart toys make up more than 98% of sales — transactions plunged nearly 70% in July from the previous month, data from analytics firm Hangzhou Zhiyi Technology Co. show.CEO Wang, in interviews with Chinese state media, has argued that global demand far exceeds supply, and hand-sewn complexity limits speed.A Pop Mart spokeswoman told Bloomberg that the company has “significantly ramped up production,” with output for plush toys including Labubus now 10 times higher than last year.“We carefully plan our launches and drops, and leverage a pre-sale strategy — this approach allows that consumers can purchase the products they want directly from Pop Mart, so they don’t need to turn to the secondary market,” the spokeswoman said. “We don’t want our products to be hyped up and resold for profit.”Now the third-richest person under 40 globally, Wang launched Pop Mart in 2010 at 23. The company went public in 2020.Frankie Fang, founding partner of private equity firm Starquest Capital, said the firm invested in 2019, just before Covid hit. Stores shuttered, but post-pandemic sentiment boosted demand as consumers sought community and comfort.“The company was in survival mode. And then, unexpectedly, the overseas market exploded after the pandemic,” Fang said.Labubu doll performers dance for visitors at Pop Land.Road AheadPop Mart is racing to cement itself as the rare Chinese pop culture property to breach the US and European mainstream. Overseas revenue jumped 440% in the first half of the year, and it plans at least 60 more foreign stores by the end of 2025, on top of 140 today.The new mini Labubu launch could also be a near-term growth catalyst, with the excitement over new launches, for the moment, overriding a lack of backstory.Every week, 30-year-old Joseph Pianoforte auctions hundreds of Labubu blind boxes to buyers worldwide on eBay Live from his Brooklyn business, Bhurst Collectors. Last week, he sold more than 800 items across three livestreams. Over 41,000 tuned into a June livestream, where boxes sold for over $100 apiece. Earlier this month, one customer told him they had spent $4,327 chasing a special edition before finally landing it through Pianoforte, who gets his supply through trading card industry connections.Still, despite his success, Pianoforte doubts Labubus’ long-term investment outlook.“This is a community-based thing at the end of the day,” he said. “I don’t think people are looking at the long, long-term on this. I don’t think people are like, ‘yo, in 50, 20 years this Labubu is going to be a thousand dollars.’ I think people are just in it right now because it’s fun.”","kind":"news","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":true,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0,"need_auth":false,"code":"91000000","status":"200"}}}