At the Fortune Global Forum at the end of October, the CEO of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, operator of the Chinese city’s stock exchange, shared an obsession among investors.
“A very interesting phenomenon is emerging, which we call ‘new consumption’,” Bonnie Chan told the audience. His main example? “Something called Labubu.”
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The ugly-cute doll, sold by Chinese manufacturer and retailer Pop Mart, is the hottest item of 2025 and, as Chan highlighted, evidence of the new trend of Chinese consumers making emotionally driven purchases.
Customers lined up at Pop Mart stores in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong to buy the dolls. Celebrities like Rihanna, Lisa and Dua Lipa have been photographed with the toy hanging from their bags.
Tennis star Naomi Osaka proudly showed off her custom, jewel-studded Labubu dolls on TV, naming them “Andre Swagassi” and “Billie Jean Bling.”
Pop Mart’s cash flow soared as Labubu dolls sold out around the world. The Beijing-based toy retailer, known for selling toys through “surprise boxes,” reported 13 billion Chinese yuan in revenue ($1.9 billion) in the first six months of 2025, an increase of more than 200% from the same period last year.
Profits grew even more: Pop Mart earned 4.5 billion yuan ($630 million) in net profit, up almost 400%. Labubu alone represented a third of sales. The global momentum has been so strong that even CEO Wang Ning admitted he can’t predict how long it will last.
The toy store’s shares have risen more than 125% since the start of 2025, making it one of the best-performing stocks on Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index. Pop Mart joined the index in September.
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Even after a 40% drop from its peak, Pop Mart’s market cap of $37 billion is still that of Hasbro, Mattel and Sanrio combined. The stock rally has also boosted Pop Mart founder Wang’s wealth, which now stands at $18 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Labubu’s hype will eventually pass, but Pop Mart clearly hopes its fortune doesn’t pass with it. What may last longer is the consumer trend behind Labubu: Chinese intellectual property and local brands beloved by this generation of consumers are gaining traction outside China, finally cementing the world’s second-largest economy as a global cultural powerhouse.
Wang Ning, born in 1987, founded Pop Mart in 2010 after a brief period working in the technology sector in China.
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The first store was in Zhongguancun, a neighborhood in Beijing known for its technology companies. Wang cited Japan’s gachapon machines — stations where children turn a button to receive a random toy — as well as Hong Kong-based retailer Log-on as inspirations for Pop Mart.
There is also an element of luck at Pop Mart. Customers don’t buy toys directly. Instead, they buy a surprise box that contains a mystery toy, such as a Labubu doll.
Some variants are rarer than others. It’s a business model that encourages customers to try their luck — perhaps several times — to get a rare version. And it’s tailor-made for social media, as creators leverage mystery to attract followers.
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In the beginning, Pop Mart sold toys based on intellectual property from companies like Disney. But she soon switched to selling toys based on designs she herself owned.
“Molly,” a series of big-eyed girl figures created by Hong Kong artist Kenny Wong, was Pop Mart’s first big hit. Then came Labubu, created by another Hong Kong artist, Kasing Lung, who developed the creature in 2015 as part of “The Monsters,” a series inspired by Norse folklore.
“First Pop Mart identifies an intellectual property, then turns that intellectual property into a cultural moment, and then builds a media ecosystem to drive it,” says Ashley Dudarenok, founder of ChoZan, a consultancy that helps foreign brands promote themselves in China. “They’re more cultural anthropologists than toymakers.”
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Pop Mart is embarking on rapid global expansion, with more than 570 stores across Europe, North America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. It generates 40% of its revenue outside Greater China, up from less than 25% a year earlier.
In the summer, analysts linked the Labubu craze to a trend spreading among China’s young people: “emotional” or “new” consumption. The idea is that young urbanites, frustrated with few career options and low social mobility, are spending on hobbies and small pleasures — rather than big assets like a house.
Pop Mart is not the only beneficiary. Chinese jewelry company Laopu Gold is up more than 150% for the year. Cosmetics brand Mao Geping rose 57%.
“It’s discretionary purchases that are creating this explosive consumer scene in China, because that’s where people can really express their personality,” notes Amber Zhang, partner at Chinese research firm BigOne Lab.
In the past, consumers might have purchased a foreign brand; now, they prefer local brands that better align with their cultural values. “People are buying it because they think, ‘Hey, this is a great expression of my personality, and it doesn’t matter that it doesn’t have a logo. [estrangeiro]’,” Zhang said.
China, despite its size and rich history, has always played less of a role than it could in global culture. Japan and South Korea, on the other hand, are cultural powerhouses — Japan with anime and video games; Korea with dramas, pop music and cosmetics.
But now the affordable treasures that Chinese consumers crave are finding an audience outside the country as well. Chinese video games such as miHoYo’s Genshin Impact and Game Science’s Black Myth: Wukong have captured global fan bases, with the latter breaking player records.
Ne Zha 2, an animation from Chinese studio Beijing Enlight Pictures, is the highest-grossing film in the world this year, with almost US$2 billion grossed (the majority in China).
Cheng Lu, CEO of CreateAI, a Chinese generative AI platform for animation and video games, says lower costs allow Chinese producers to “get more content to market.”
Chinese beverage brands are also entering international markets. Luckin Coffee, bubble tea brand Chagee and ice cream chain Mixue are expanding into Southeast Asia, East Asia and the United States.
Even Chinese cosmetics are starting to gain ground in a market dominated by Japanese and Korean brands, thanks to affordable products and aggressive digital marketing.
“Do you know how crazy social media is in China?” Malina Ngai, CEO of Hong Kong-based health and beauty chain AS Watson, told Fortune in September. “When they go outside of China, they immediately surpass a lot of brands when it comes to social media, storytelling and endorsements.”
Zhang is not surprised by China’s global rise. “China now has a huge population base that is both rooted in the country but also exposed to the global market,” she says, citing the many Chinese who have lived, worked and studied abroad.
“They know how China works, and they know how the world works — and now they have the opportunity to create and combine something that can resonate not just with Chinese people, but also with a broader audience.”
The Labubu craze has subsided since the summer frenzy. Investors are wary of falling resale prices for the dolls, a sign of their declining popularity. They are clearly nervous.
In early November, Chinese media shared a secretly recorded conversation with a Pop Mart salesperson who said the company’s surprise boxes are too expensive. Pop Mart lost nearly $2.2 billion in market value that day.
Still, some analysts are optimistic that Pop Mart is more than just Labubu. “We believe that Pop Mart is still in a growth phase as it takes its products to the world, and that its relevant peers should be large global intellectual property companies such as Lego, Sanrio and Jellycat,” HSBC analysts wrote in late October, rejecting parallels with the Beanie Babies bubble of the 1990s.
“The question now is: can Pop Mart — beyond Labubu, beyond Molly — make the transition to being a lifestyle?” asks Dudarenok.
Pop Mart is experimenting with movies and has a theme park, but it’s still unclear whether the company can make most of its revenue from lifestyle — and not rely so heavily on a furry, smiling, yeti-looking toy. (or Abominable Snowman).
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