Chinese company Pop Mart aims to transform the popular character Labubu into a long-term global brand, borrowing Disney's strategies, said Executive and Operating Director Xi De in an interview with Reuters, writes UNN.
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We have been learning from Disney for a long time. In fact, Disney's great value lies in its ability to manage intellectual property (IP) for a long time, even up to 100 years.
Pop Mart has already achieved what was considered almost impossible – Labubu has become the first Chinese product to win a global audience thanks to its emotional and creative appeal. Now the company plans to use the success of the art toy to develop content, entertainment, theme parks, and merchandise based on it – similar to how Disney develops its most popular characters.
Labubu manufacturer forecasts profit growth of at least 350%16.07.25, 14:00
We are focused not on finding the "next big hit", but on investing in better products, finding better collaboration opportunities, developing content, theme parks, store displays.
Pop Mart's ultimate goal is to create five to ten intellectual brands with the same long-term potential as Labubu.
The global success of the character has led to the company's shares on the Hong Kong stock exchange growing by almost 200% since the beginning of the year. Pop Mart is now valued higher than popular companies Hasbro, Mattel, and Sanrio combined.
Pop Mart sells a lifestyle that consumers buy because they want to be a part of it.
The popularity of Labubu has also stimulated sales of other Pop Mart products, such as Molly, Skullpanda, and Crybaby, each of which exceeded 1 billion yuan in the first half of the year, and sparked interest in products outside the company. Analysts, however, note that the company remains dependent on Labubu, as the "Monsters" series, which includes Labubu, accounted for almost 35% of total revenue in the first half of the year.
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According to Industry World estimates, the volume of revenue of the Chinese art toy market will exceed 120 billion yuan (16.85 billion dollars) this year, which will account for more than 35% of the global market and ensure further growth.
Thanks to Pop Mart's success, more people with money have appeared who want to invest in this industry. You see, many new companies are appearing now, and certainly more and more artists are trying to use intellectual property as a way to make money.
As Reuters writes, just as Pop Mart studied Disney, other firms in China are also already studying Pop Mart. Whether the Disney model will help the company overcome growing competition remains unclear.
We all know the Disney scheme, which is generally relatively easy to replicate, but its success is not.