Pop Mart and Labubu: The Chinese Empire of Global Collectibles

In October 2024, in a Pop Mart (泡泡玛特) store in Beijing's Sanlitun district, security guards struggle to contain a line that stretches hundreds of meters. Young women, mostly aged 18 to 35, wait patiently, some for more than ten hours, to buy the latest Labubu (ラブブ) collection, a small pointy-eared creature with a mischievous smile designed by the artist Kasing Lung. Each box, sold at about 79 yuan (11 dollars), contains a random figurine from a series of twelve to fifteen models. Some rare figurines, pulled at one in 144, trade on the secondary market for thousands of dollars. The same scene repeats in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Seoul, London, Paris and New York. In five years, the Chinese company Pop Mart, founded in 2010 by a 23-year-old entrepreneur named Wang Ning (王宁), has become the fastest commercial phenomenon in the Asian world. In 2024, Pop Mart crossed the 10 billion yuan revenue mark (about $1.4 billion), set up in 30 countries and popularized a concept that comes directly from Japan but that China reinvented in its own way: the blind box (盲盒, mánghé). This article tells how a small variety store in Beijing became, in fourteen years, the new global giant of adult pop collectibles.

Wang Ning: The 23-Year-Old Entrepreneur

A Youth in Beijing

Wang Ning (王宁) was born in 1987 in Xinxiang, Henan province, central China. His father is an engineer, his mother a civil servant. Wang grew up in a China in full economic boil, between the 1980s reforms and WTO entry in 2001. He studied at Zhengzhou Forestry University, where he earned a degree in communication and marketing. As a young student, he became passionate about Japanese gashapon figurines (ガシャポン, surprise capsules sold by Tokyo vending machines) and Hong Kong collectible figures, notably those created by Michael Lau, pioneer of the Asian designer toy.

In 2010, at 23, Wang Ning left Zhengzhou for Beijing with a simple but bold idea: open a shop specialized in trendy small objects imported from Japan and Southeast Asia. He chose the name Pop Mart (泡泡玛特, literally "air bubble"), which evokes both lightness and modernity. The first store opened in Beijing's Zhongguancun mall in August 2010. It was only 80 square meters and offered a heterogeneous mix of stationery, decorative items, Japanese snacks and small gadgets.

The Hard Years and the Revelation

The early years were chaotic. Pop Mart quickly opened other stores in the major Chinese malls, but margins were thin and competition fierce. Wang Ning nearly closed the company several times between 2011 and 2014. The turning point came in 2015, when Wang, on a trip to Tokyo, discovered gashapon machines and the figurines of the brand Sonny Angel, made by the Japanese company Dreams Inc. and sold in blind boxes since 2004. The concept is simple: each box is identical on the outside, but contains a different figurine randomly drawn from a series. The collector must buy several boxes to complete their collection, and hope to hit the secret figurine, rarer still.

Wang Ning immediately saw the potential. He negotiated exclusive distribution of Sonny Angel in China, and in 2016, Pop Mart sold more than a million Sonny Angels in less than a year. The company's revenue exploded. Wang then decided to launch his own characters and become a licensor himself.

2016 to 2020: A Lightning Rise

Molly: The First Phenomenon

In 2016, Pop Mart signed an exclusivity deal with the Hong Kong artist Kenny Wong (王信明), creator of the character Molly (茉莉), a little girl with a sulky gaze inspired by his own daughter. Molly is a vinyl figurine in a blind box, sold at about 59 yuan (8 dollars). Each series contains 12 different characters plus a secret figurine, pulled at 1 in 144. Chinese collectors, mostly women in their twenties, fell for Molly. In 2019, Pop Mart sold 4.5 million Molly figurines, generating more than 450 million yuan in revenue for that brand alone.

Molly's success let Pop Mart sign other Asian artists, progressively forming a catalog of exclusive licenses: Pucky (Dou Xiaodou), Dimoo (Ayan), Skullpanda (Xiong Miao), Baby Three, Crybaby (Molly Yllom), and most of all Labubu by Kasing Lung.

IPO and Internationalization

On December 11, 2020, Pop Mart made its debut on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The IPO was one of the major financial events of the year in Asia: the shares tripled on day one, valuing the company at more than $15 billion. Wang Ning, 33, became a billionaire. Pop Mart used this financial windfall to accelerate international expansion: opening stores in Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, Bangkok, then London (2022), Paris (2023) and New York (2024).

In 2022, Pop Mart opened its first theme park, Pop Mart Land in Beijing, dedicated to its characters. The 40,000-square-meter park immediately welcomed one million visitors a year and became a major tourist destination for Chinese Gen Z.

Labubu: The Global Phenomenon of 2024

Kasing Lung and the Birth of Labubu

Kasing Lung (龍家昇), a Hong Kong artist and illustrator born in 1972 and raised in the Netherlands, created Labubu (ラブブ) in 2015 for an illustration book titled The Monsters. Labubu is a small creature with pointy ears and a toothy smile, inspired by Nordic folklore and Scandinavian elves. Kasing Lung, shaped by his Dutch childhood, drew from European fairy tales, Arthur Rackham's elves, Maurice Sendak's characters.

In 2019, Pop Mart signed an exclusive deal with Kasing Lung to produce Labubu blind-box figurines. The first series, launched in 2019-2020, met with modest but steady success in China, mainly among a niche audience of designer-toy enthusiasts.

The Global Explosion of 2023 to 2024

The turning point came from 2023, when Pop Mart launched a line of Labubu plush keychains (ラブブぬいぐるみ) designed to hang on handbags. The concept, borrowed from Japan where omamori (お守り, amulets) and plush keychains are traditional, massively appealed to young Chinese women, then Korean and Thai women.

The snowball effect was triggered in April 2024, when Thai pop singer Lisa from BLACKPINK posted on Instagram a photo of herself carrying a Louis Vuitton bag decorated with several Labubus. The #Labubu hashtag hit 2 billion views on TikTok in less than three months. International celebrities Rihanna, Dua Lipa, Kim Kardashian, Bella Hadid, Selena Gomez, Emma Watson appeared with Labubus hanging from their Hermès, Chanel or Prada bags.

The phenomenon went viral in the United States, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East. Pop Mart stores in London, Paris, Los Angeles and Dubai were mobbed. By summer 2024, queues topped eight hours outside the Pop Mart on Carnaby Street in London. Labubu plushies, sold between $16 and $40 depending on the model, moved several million units a month. Rare models like the Labubu Secret (pulled at 1 in 72) traded for thousands of dollars on StockX, eBay and Xianyu (the Chinese equivalent).

Dizzying 2024 Numbers

In 2024, Labubu alone generated more than 30 billion yuan in revenue for Pop Mart (about $4 billion), nearly half the company's total revenue. International sales exploded: France became the second European market after the UK, and the US overtook Japan in volume. Pop Mart opened stores in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Australia, Mexico, Brazil. Pop Mart's stock on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange rose ten-fold between January 2023 and December 2024, making Wang Ning, at 37, one of China's youngest billionaires with a fortune estimated at $22 billion.

The Blind-Box Phenomenon: Psychology and Sociology

The Mechanism of Controlled Chance

The blind box (盲盒, mánghé) rests on a powerful psychological principle: the uncertainty of the reward. The collector does not know what they are buying until they open the box. Each series typically includes:

• 12 characters or variants visible in the collection
• 1 or 2 secret figurines not illustrated on the packaging, pulled at 1 in 144 or 1 in 288
• Sometimes chase figures (special versions of a standard character)

This system, derived from Japanese gashapon of the 1980s but perfected by Pop Mart, activates the same neural circuits as gambling: dopamine release with each opening, a quest for completion, frustration of repetition, euphoria of rarity. Studies conducted by Professor Li Wei of Peking University in 2023 showed that 68 percent of regular blind-box buyers buy more than one box at a time, and 23 percent display compulsive behaviors close to those of pathological gamblers.

Criticism and Regulation

These mechanisms have raised concern in China. In August 2022, the Chinese government, through the State Administration for Market Regulation, published Blind Box Guidelines that ban sales to minors under 8, require transparency on pull probabilities, and limit surprise editions to a proportion of the series. Pop Mart had to publicly disclose the pull probabilities of each of its series. Concerns are lower abroad, where legislation has not yet caught up with the phenomenon.

Why It Works: The Sociological Analysis

Why do blind boxes so captivate Asian Gen Z? Several factors combine:

• Accessible price: between 59 and 89 yuan in China, roughly a restaurant meal. Unlike traditional luxury, the entry barrier is low.
• A strong social dimension: collectors meet on WeChat, Xiaohongshu, Instagram and TikTok to share unboxings, trade duplicates, display their collection.
• An aesthetic dimension: Pop Mart figurines are designed, colorful, Instagrammable, and become fashion accessories in their own right.
• An identifiable anti-luxury: unlike Louis Vuitton bags or Rolex watches, Labubus are affordable, playful, and signal belonging to a community rather than a social class.
• A collectible culture: China, under Japanese and Korean influence, has developed since the 2010s a strong adult collectibles culture, which also covers Lego, sneakers, Pokémon cards, K-pop cards.

Pop Mart in the Global Pop Ecosystem

The Comparison with Sanrio

Pop Mart is often compared to Sanrio, creator of Hello Kitty, but the strategies differ. Sanrio bets on a limited number of main characters (Hello Kitty, Kuromi, Cinnamoroll) extended into thousands of products (stationery, clothing, accessories). Pop Mart bets on a broad, rotating gallery of characters mainly extended into collectible figurines. Sanrio targets the whole family (children, teens, nostalgic adults); Pop Mart targets mostly urban 18-35-year-olds. Sanrio sells at low prices and high volume, Pop Mart bets on controlled scarcity and mid-range prices.

In 2024, both companies have similar market caps (around $15 billion), but Pop Mart has a much higher growth rate: +106 percent annual revenue growth in 2024 vs. +25 percent for Sanrio.

Influence on Other Brands

Pop Mart's success has inspired a wave of me-too ventures in China and beyond: Miniso (the Chinese variety chain) launched its own blind-box line in 2022, Top Toy (ByteDance) in 2023, Loopy (Korean) in 2024. In the US, Funko (creator of Funko Pop figurines) launched blind boxes in 2023. In Japan, Bandai integrates the concept into some of its Gundam and One Piece lines.

Pop Mart and Chinese Culture

A fascinating aspect of Pop Mart is that it is one of the first successful Chinese cultural exports to a global public. Unlike Chinese cinema (still little exported), Chinese music (niche abroad) or manhua (less known than manga), Pop Mart has managed to get its characters adopted by non-Chinese audiences. Lisa, Rihanna, Dua Lipa or Kim Kardashian buy Labubus without necessarily knowing the brand is Chinese. Pop Mart offers a model of Chinese cultural soft power that is non-political, aesthetic, consumerist.

Pop Mart Communities and Fan Culture

Xiaohongshu: The Collectors' Social Network

In China, the platform Xiaohongshu (小红书, literally "little red book") is the epicenter of Pop Mart culture. With more than 300 million users in 2024, Xiaohongshu is the Chinese Instagram, focused on lifestyle, fashion, beauty and collectibles. The hashtags #泡泡玛特 (Pop Mart) and #Labubu have billions of views there. Users share unboxings, trade tips on series to buy, resell duplicates, display their collection staged in carefully designed settings.

Conventions and Pop-up Stores

Pop Mart organizes Pop Mart Fan Conventions each year in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Seoul and Bangkok. These conventions draw tens of thousands of fans, who come to meet the artists, buy early limited editions, attend talks on the art of designer toys. Pop Mart pop-up stores (temporary shops) regularly appear in luxury malls (Harrods in London, Galeries Lafayette in Paris, Dubai Mall, SoHo in New York), generating spectacular queues.

The Secondary Market

A notable phenomenon is the scale of the secondary market for Pop Mart figurines. On StockX (US resale platform), Xianyu (Chinese equivalent), Mercari (Japanese) and eBay, certain rare figurines trade for thousands of dollars. The Labubu Secret Space, a figurine pulled at 1 in 864 in 2023, sold for $19,000 on StockX in 2024. This speculation fuels the virtuous circle of scarcity: the rarer the figurine, the more expensive it is, the more the next releases are desired.

引

Pop Mart understood that, in a global economy where everything is accessible and immediate, controlled scarcity and controlled unexpectedness are worth more than abundance and predictability.

Stakes and Criticism

The Environmental Question

The massive production of figurines in PVC (polyvinyl chloride) and synthetic resin raises environmental questions. Pop Mart produces more than 100 million figurines a year in its factories in Dongguan and Shenzhen. The company announced in 2023 a transition plan to bio-based materials, but progress remains slow. NGOs like Greenpeace China and the Plastic Pollution Coalition regularly criticize the ecological impact of the Pop Mart model.

The Psychological Question

Compulsive buying behaviors linked to blind boxes have generated alarming coverage in the Chinese and Korean press. The Beijing Youth Daily ran a 2023 feature on "blind-box addicts," some spending several months' salary to complete a series. Platforms like Zhihu (Chinese Quora) are full of testimonies from users who have accumulated hundreds of figurines at the expense of their food budget or their studies. Pop Mart put in place in 2024 purchase caps on certain premium series, limiting buyers to 10 units.

The Cultural Question

Some Chinese intellectuals, like sociologist Xiang Biao (Max Planck Institute), question the cultural model championed by Pop Mart. For Xiang, the company celebrates a form of infantile regression and consumerist fetishism that could weaken young people's engagement in society, politics, family. Others, like Tricia Wang, a Chinese anthropologist based in the US, see Pop Mart instead as a form of emancipation: young Chinese women offer themselves an aesthetic and playful pleasure, outside traditional expectations about marriage, motherhood and career.

The Future of Pop Mart: 2025 and Beyond

In 2025, Pop Mart plans to open 100 new stores worldwide, launch a second Pop Mart Land in Shanghai, and explore haute-couture collaborations with Louis Vuitton, Coach and Tiffany. The company is investing heavily in the metaverse with a virtual universe where fans can collect NFT figurines. A Labubu animated film is in production for 2026, in partnership with Sony Pictures Animation.

The real challenge for Wang Ning will be to extend momentum beyond the Labubu phenomenon, which could, like any fashion phenomenon, cool down around 2026-2027. Pop Mart bets on constant renewal of its catalog, with 200 new characters launched every year, and on opening new geographies (Africa, India, Eastern Europe).

Pop Mart is not merely a figurine company; it is a symptom of our era. In a world where everything is accessible, instant, predictable, where algorithms serve us before we have even wished, the blind box paradoxically offers what has become rarest: the unexpected. It takes us back to childhood, to the excitement of opening a Kinder Surprise or a pack of Pokémon cards, to the magic of a gift that eludes us. Wang Ning, at 37, has built in fourteen years an empire that already outpaces Lego in annual growth and rivals Sanrio in cultural influence. But behind this success story is above all the revelation of a deep, cross-cultural need: the need for daily wonder, however tiny, however paid for, however plastic. Labubu, with its toothy grin, is at bottom only a miniature totem, hanging from the bag of a young woman in Shanghai, Paris or Los Angeles, silently saying: "I belong to a community that refuses to take the world too seriously." And that may be, in the end, the true Chinese soft power of 2025: not politics, not economics, but a little Chinese monster with pointy ears, gone universal.

Photo credits: images used in this article come from Pexels and Unsplash and are royalty-free.