When a novice driver is suddenly thrust behind the wheel of a Formula One car, every muscle tightens.
That is how Wang Ning describes Pop Mart’s state of mind after Labubu went viral.
“We’re like someone who just learned to drive and was suddenly asked to race in F1,” Wang, founder of Pop Mart, told China Entrepreneur. “Everyone goes into an extremely tense mode.”
Looking back on 2025, Wang calls it “a dreamlike year.” In the first half of 2025, Pop Mart reported revenue of RMB 13.88 billion (USD 1.9 billion), up 204.4% year-on-year. “Revenue for 2025 should surpass RMB 30 billion (USD 4.2 billion),” Wang said at the company’s midyear earnings briefing.
The virality of Labubu, a surge in earnings, and a rising share price have elevated Wang’s profile. Before high school, he had barely visited major cities. Now, Pop Mart stores stretch from Beijing to Paris, London, and New York. His ambition has expanded accordingly: to build “the world’s Pop Mart.”
Under a global spotlight, Wang said he feels more anxious than ever and increasingly aware of the need for restraint and composure. He told China Entrepreneur that Pop Mart has a genuine opportunity to become a world-class consumer brand. At this stage, however, any misstep could be costly.
That vigilance is central to his character. For years, his social media bio quoted the Spring and Autumn statesman Guan Zhong, conveying a similar message: success is born of careful planning, achieved through diligence, and undone by arrogance.
For Pop Mart, applause and skepticism arrived almost simultaneously in 2025. After 15 years in business, Wang believes independent thinking and persistence brought the company to this point. “This is the year I’ve felt the most anxiety,” he said. “The whole company is taking on greater responsibility. We hope to prepare for risks before they arise and make ourselves stronger.”
Going viral
In 2025, Labubu ignited a frenzy not only in China, but around the world.
Last April, the “Big Into Energy” series launched globally and drew heavy consumer interest across multiple regions, pushing Pop Mart’s market capitalization to a peak of HKD 300 billion (USD 38.4 billion).
The company’s growth has reshaped perceptions of contemporary toys and attracted new competitors. “A company’s moat is either hard or soft,” Wang told China Entrepreneur. He described Pop Mart’s soft moat as cultural, and its hard moat as the accumulation of more than a decade of operational detail.
“If you cover a brand’s logo and people can’t tell who it is, then it might not be a real brand,” Wang said. “To build a real brand, you have to return offline and create a fully immersive environment that’s visual, auditory, and even olfactory. Once that takes shape, it becomes extremely valuable.”
Wang describes his role as managing “the biggest things and the smallest things,” while intervening as little as possible in between. “I have an excellent team that shares the load and frees up much of my time.”
The smallest things, he said, are the accumulation of countless details. He once studied store lighting, weighing whether 3000K or 3500K better attracted customers, with higher Kelvin values indicating cooler light.
More recently, he has been scrutinizing the design of Pop Mart’s shopping bags and shipping cartons. “No matter whether a company is developing artificial intelligence or running a dumpling shop, in the end it all comes down to everyday details,” he said.
That focus, he said, provides confidence amid intensifying competition. “Competition comes from all directions, but we believe in ourselves.”
In 2025, Labubu became one of China’s most recognizable pop culture symbols. Its rapid ascent has also fueled concerns that its IP value could fade if consumer interest slows.
Wang disputes the idea that Labubu’s popularity was sudden. “It’s already ten years old,” he said. In his view, its breakout rests on product quality.
“The introduction of the vinyl plush category allowed more people to fall in love with Labubu,” he said. “Our original goal was to create a perfect Labubu. Based on that, we realized plush fabric better matches Labubu’s animal attributes. We’ve always believed IP companies have longevity. A company may go through cycles and fluctuations, but the value of IP endures.”
Like Labubu, Wang sees Pop Mart as a product of gradual growth. “Even if others are equally smart and hardworking, they still need the same amount of time,” he said. In his view, many failed cases either underestimate the role of time or neglect operations. “Trendy toys aren’t built simply by throwing money, resources, or operations at them.”
In the early days of the company, Wang often urged employees to slow down. “Only by spending more time than others in narrow spaces can you win through accumulation.” After Pop Mart entered a rapid growth phase, however, slowing down became more difficult. Wang said he has exercised restraint.
Since the launch of the “Big Into Energy” series, Pop Mart has released only a mini series within the plush Labubu category. It has not pursued extensive collaborations or peripheral products to accelerate IP monetization. In Wang’s view, Labubu’s commercial potential remains in its early stages.
Today, overseas markets have become the company’s primary growth driver.
When Pop Mart listed in Hong Kong in 2020, its overseas business contributed little revenue. Although it began expanding abroad in 2018, meaningful overseas revenue has emerged only in the past two years.
According to the company’s third-quarter 2025 results, revenue rose about 245–250% year on year, while overseas markets recorded roughly 365–370% growth. As of June 30, 2025, Pop Mart operated 571 stores across 18 countries and regions, including 40 newly added brick-and-mortar outlets and 105 additional automated kiosks.
Wang said headcount has surpassed 10,000 employees, including more than 3,000 foreign nationals. “The Americas remain our fastest-growing market, and many European countries are still in the early stages,” he said. Pop Mart plans to open larger stores in higher-traffic locations with stronger design elements to create culturally immersive offline experiences.
In 2018, when Pop Mart established its international division, Wang said he hoped overseas revenue would eventually reach 50% of domestic revenue. “At the time, almost no one believed it,” a senior executive said. The company’s recent expansion suggests its IP and products can resonate internationally, although no specific revenue breakdown was disclosed.
Wang often repeats a line: “We are what we are today not because of what we did, but because of what we didn’t do.” He told China Entrepreneur that Pop Mart has historically said “no” more often than “yes.” “When good news fills the sky, that’s when you should pay attention to bad news.”
He has declined opportunities to open certain stores or enter specific categories. That discipline, he said, is difficult for competitors to replicate.
Over the past year, Wang said he has focused on organizational cohesion:
“How do we unite everyone to accomplish bigger things? That’s the greater challenge.”
His ambitions have expanded, while his personal desires have simplified. On November 17, 2025, Pop Mart released a 15th-anniversary retrospective video. The final scene shows Wang nearly two decades ago, riding a tricycle to stock goods for Grid Street, where his entrepreneurial ambitions began.
He said he hopes to remain like that young man in the years ahead, grounded and composed, while guiding Pop Mart through its next phase of growth.
This article was adapted based on a feature originally written by Sun Xin and published on China Entrepreneur. KrASIA is authorized to translate, adapt, and publish its contents.