Pop Mart's Wang Ning Is China's 10th Richest Thanks To Labubu Mania

Forbes

a day ago

Labubu dolls on display at a Pop Mart store in Shanghai, Around the world, toys based on the character by Chinese toy company Pop Mart are flying off store shelves.
VCG/VCG via Getty Images
Wang Ning, founder of toy maker Pop Mart International Group, has joined the ranks of China's top ten billionaires for the first time, as the company's Labubu dolls fly off store shelves in Asia, Europe and the U.S.
Wang, who is the Beijing-based company's chairman and CEO, is now the 10th richest man in China, according to the Forbes's Real-Time Billionaires List. With a net worth of $22.7 billion based on a Pop Mart stake, the 38-year-old is the youngest member of the country's top echelon of tycoons, which includes ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming, Nongfu Spring Chairman Zhong Shanshan and Tencent cofounder Ma Huateng.
The price of Pop Mart's Hong Kong-listed shares has tripled to more than $270 ($34.40) this year. Designed by Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung, the company's Labubu dolls are being collected by celebrities around the world including American pop star Rihanna, English-Albanian singer and actress Dua Lipa and Lisa of the South Korean girl group Blackpink.
The rabbit-like Labubu, which has pointed ears, jagged teeth and a mischievous smile, is causing havoc in stores. After Pop Mart launched a third edition of the doll in April, fights broke out in one London store among fans desperate to fork out £13.50 ($18.30) to £50 per doll. In its home market of China, a human-sized Labubu doll was auctioned on Tuesday for a whopping 1.08 million yuan ($150,000) in Beijing.
China's Ping An Bank tried to entice new customers by offering Labubu toys to anyone who opened a new account and deposited more than 50,000 yuan. That practice was recently stopped by financial regulators, who said the bank was offering improper incentives to attract deposits.
Amid the seemingly insatiable demand for Labubu, investment banks Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley are substantially lifting their price targets for Pop Mart shares. Deutsche Bank, for example, lifted its target by 52% to HK$303 due to the company's strong overseas growth momentum.
"It is rare for a comic/toy IP [intellectual property] to break the culture wall and be embraced by both Asian cultures as well as mainstream Western pop stars and sports stars," Deutsche Bank analyst Jessie Xu wrote in a research note.
A Pop Mart representative says the company has no comment on its share price.
But not everyone is convinced it can last.
'Overall, we view Pop Mart's shares as overvalued from a long-term perspective,' Jeff Zhang, a Hong Kong-based equity analyst at Morningstar, says by email. 'While top IPs such as Labubu have maintained strong sales growth, we think long-run business risks remain high, as consumers' traction may shift to competitors' IPs.'
When that might happen is difficult to predict, Kenny Ng, a Hong Kong-based securities strategist at Everbright Securities International, says by WeChat. The long-term growth of Pop Mart depends on whether its designers can keep creating hot products, he says.
As for now, Ng says the shares are a bit expensive. The HK$365 billion company currently trades at more than 50 times its estimated earnings for 2025, he says. Pop Mart says sales during the first three months of this year grew as much as 170% year-on-year without providing specific figures, according to preliminary first quarter results announced via the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in April.
The company had previously estimated that full-year sales could grow over 50% year-on-year to more than 20 billion yuan in 2025. Last year, its revenue surged 107% to 13 billion yuan, while profit attributable to owners of the company jumped over 180% to 3.1 billion yuan.
Ng says short-term investors might need to wait and see. 'I think there might be an investment opportunity if the shares fall a bit,' he says. 'They are definitely not cheap.'