From a collectible toy to an international status character

It was a sunny evening on Thursday in New York on Washington Square. People gathered there for one reason, and only one of the reasons: a fashion exhibition labubu.

On June 12, Labubu lovers gathered on the sidewalks with tiny toy monsters, cut into wallets, backpacks, and even with their dogs. The model with the best Flair got a new toy and, of course, a wallet to hang it.

The evening gave an idea of the seemingly, a sudden world’s obsession with a stuffed animal, which is sold about $ 30 and sold by the Chinese collection company Pop Mart. Labuba – “a small monster with tall, pointed ears, gear teeth” and “mischievous” smile, reports Web -Sight Pop Mart.

Pop Mart sells hundreds of different versions of Labubu – varies by color and rarity levels – and fans do not know what they bought until they unveiled it, as well as the seaball card package. More than 1 million videos mentions terrible monsters and they are often sold in minutes.

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Lovers vary from adult fashionistas and toys collectors to parents who buy strangely horrible dolls for their little ones. They can lining up in POP Mart stores and shops for hours, even traveling abroad to get hands. Some labubus go for hundreds or even thousands of dollars in resale markets such as Stockx or eBay.

According to world income, POP Mart brought about 13.04 billion yuan ($ 1.8 billion), the company reports Last announcement of annual results. This included an equivalent of approximately $ 460 million, the report said.

Approximately $ 423 million from the world’s world income came only from labubu dolls, says Emily Bro, head of the Pop Mart Intellectual Property Licensing for America. This growth by 729% compared to 2023, she adds.

“We watched the incredible growth of income and interest in all our IS,” BRA says. “Labubu certainly reached astronomical numbers last year.”

Here’s how Labubu moved from a simple collectible toy to a viral, monetary sensation.

Construction of a multi -billion dollar brand

Pop Mart was founded in 2010 as a small diversity shop in Beijing, China. Its founder Van Nin – who now 38 – had a skill for retailers as a college student, where he sold accessories to his classmates, According to Bloomberg.

Business has grown steadily, opening another retail store in the 2011 shopping center and online store in 2016. POP Mart has regularly collaborated with artists to develop and create different toys and statuettes, and in 2019 she concluded such a deal with artist Casing Lung, who illustrated a series of books called “Monster”.

Labubu – a character from “The Monsters”, and the first wave of Pop Mart dolls “beat (business”) sales records in the Art Toy category ” According to the company’s website. A year later, POP Mart began to publicly trade Hong Kong with a $ 6.9 billion estimate, putting a company within international toys such as Mattel and Hasbro.

The turn of buyers to the POP MART machine to buy collecting at the American Dream New Jersey shopping center.

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In 2023, POP Mart began selling Labubus versions tied to their keys. Then, in April 2024, Lalis “Lisa” Manoban, a member of the K-Pop Blackpink band, was noticed from Labub to a wallet as a charm bag.

She unconsciously started madness when people flocked to get their own -toy -strokes – quickly turning the Pop Mart dolls into a fashion accessory and a symbol of social status. Celebrities such as the Fine and the billionaire Rihanna put Labus on their own wallets, further popularizing the toy.

People customize their dolls, giving them hats, “design” outfits, sun glasses and their own wallets. Some people even put real tattoos on Labus’s face. The POP Mart market limit is now $ 43,28 billion, as of Monday, it exceeds $ 6.44 billion and 10.63 billion Hasbra.

We “build a brand for longevity”

The overwhelming majority of POP MART revenue comes from Asia – $ 1.6 billion in 2024, including only $ 1.1 billion only from mainland China. However, Labubus now has hundreds of thousands of fans worldwide, including 145,000 Monsters, for example, in the Labubu Reddit community.

500 POP Mart stores worldwide include more than 90 retail outlets in the US, including vending machines, According to his site. The success of the company pushed Nina’s calculated pure value 21.6 billion dollarsSays Forbes.

Some Labubu fans say their commitment to the plush monsters goes beyond the influence of celebrities: they love unique toys, faces created for them, and acute sensations of trying to get a specific lobby for their collections.

Pop -Marta’s income by 2024 in the region.

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Reportedly limited supply of POP MART has led to Customers fighting for labubus. The rise in resale prices has created a market for Knockoff Labubus, known as “Lafufus”, on platforms such as Amazon and AliExpress.

Fashion and pop -culture trends usually do not last forever, that is, Labubu dolls can fade over time. So far, POP Mart plans to continue expanding the international level – taking a hobby while it exists – and grows its list of artists to create and sell more characters, BRA says.

“Pop Mart has been in existence for 15 years and we really are building a brand for longevity,” she says. “If we continue to diversify the portfolio of our artists and diversify the ways that people can really interact with our heroes, we will continue our mission to cover the passion and bring joy for years to come.”

Convert from CNY to USD were made using the Oand Convert speed 0.13923 June 16, 2025.

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