Simply weeks in the past, Pop Mart founder Wang Ning was driving excessive with a web value of $27 billion, richer than Silicon Valley’s Peter Thiel, due to a rabbit-eared plush referred to as Labubu.
The “ugly-cute” doll has been flaunted by celebrities from David Beckham to Blackpink’s Lisa, pushing resale costs to dizzying heights.
However as soon as the “cool hunters” transfer on, Wall Avenue does too, and Wang is discovering that out the costly manner.
Since Pop Mart’s peak on Aug. 26, the inventory has plunged about 20%, erasing $13 billion in market cap—1 / 4 of his firm’s value—because the craze reveals its age. The Beijing-based toymaker’s Hong Kong inventory continued to dive on Monday, sliding as a lot as 9% in its steepest single-day tumble for the reason that U.S. unveiled “Liberation Day” tariffs in April.
Wang has personally misplaced $6 billion of his personal web value since late August, in response to a Forbes estimate.
The sharp pullback follows a downgrade on Monday from JPMorgan, with analysts warning that the agency’s valuation leaves “little margin for error” after a 427% surge over the previous yr.
Pop Mart didn’t instantly reply to Fortune’s request for remark.
From craze to comedown
For a lot of 2024 and early 2025, Pop Mart was the darling of the Cling Seng Index as Labubu dolls sparked a frenzy throughout Asia. However a toy with a hype constructed on its engineered shortage—Labubu dolls are notoriously tough to gather and have a thriving resale and forgery market—can’t be invaluable ceaselessly.
“The whole thing feels like the inevitable life cycle of something that becomes faddish, hits saturation, and then begins to fizzle,” Brook Duffy, a social media researcher and a communications professor at Cornell College, advised Fortune. “Once too much attention gets lavished on a trend, it immediately loses its social currency.”
She in contrast Labubu’s rise and stall to the Tickle Me Elmo craze of the Nineteen Nineties: first not possible to search out, then all of a sudden all over the place, and eventually now not cool.
Pop Mart’s breakneck progress hasn’t reversed but. Gross sales have surged over the previous two years, with income greater than doubling in 2024 and climbing one other 200% within the first half of 2025.
However there are early indicators of fatigue. Resale costs for Labubu collectibles are slipping, and analysts fear that the corporate stays closely reliant on a single product.
“As soon as you saw celebrities showing them off, that was the tipping point for Gen Z,” Duffy defined. “What was scarce suddenly felt commercial.”
JPMorgan analysts echoed that skepticism of their downgrade, trimming their goal value to HK$300 from HK$400. Whereas Popmart’s first-half earnings and collaborations with manufacturers like Uniqlo hit their marks, upcoming initiatives, together with a Labubu animation collection and interactive toy traces, have a speculative worth thus far, JPMorgan mentioned.
Pop Mart, in different phrases, is a sufferer of its personal success. After a five-fold inventory rally over the previous yr, even minor disappointments—from weaker resale values or whispers about product high quality—can set off an outsized selloff. So what as soon as regarded like a runaway progress story now seems extra to be a precarious guess.
A check of endurance
The deep query is whether or not Labubu can have a “soft landing” from its craze and evolve from fad to franchise.
“The novelty is always going to wear off,” Duffy mentioned. “You just don’t know when. That unpredictability is what keeps marketers up at night.”
Pop Mart is betting huge on enlargement, looking for to function 200 international shops and merchandising machine “roboshops” by yr’s finish, and goals for abroad markets to contribute 60% of earnings by 2027. Labubu alone nonetheless accounts for greater than a 3rd of gross sales.
However sustaining cultural relevance is more durable than scaling retail.
“Right now feels like a critical inflection point,” Duffy mentioned. “In a social media era, the hype cycle moves at breakneck speed. Something that was everywhere yesterday can feel overexposed today.”
For Wang, the clock is ticking: discover a approach to preserve Labubu contemporary, or danger watching his billion-dollar mascot fade into the toy field of previous fads.
Fortune World Discussion board returns Oct. 26–27, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and international leaders will collect for a dynamic, invitation-only occasion shaping the way forward for enterprise. Apply for an invite.
