"Rabbit monster" Labubu is a toy character that caused a fever in the first half of this year.
In April 2024, Lisa posted several photos of herself holding a Labubu teddy bear on her personal Instagram. She also showed off her new collection and excitedly matched it with her outfits.
After that, Rose also posted a photo with this cute pointed-eared rabbit. Not only for display, the 2 girls of Blackpink also used the Labubu stuffed animal as a fashion accessory, highlighting their outfits.
According to The Nation Thailand, just one moment of Lisa hugging Labubu caused the price of this toy to skyrocket by 400%. Items related to Labubu sold out in a short time.
The character Labubu was created by Chinese artist Kasing Lung in 2015 and is owned by Pop Mart, founded by billionaire Wang Ning.
Wang Ning was born in 1987 in a family with a tradition of trading and was exposed to business from a young age.
In 2005, Wang Ning became an advertising major at Zhengzhou University (Henan, China).
After graduating, realizing the development potential of the stationery model, Wang Ning used all his savings to establish Bubble Mart, the predecessor of Pop Mart.
In late 2010, the first Pop Mart store opened in Beijing's Zhongguancun Technology Valley. However, Wang Ning received numerous rejections from shopping malls. They said that his business idea had no chance of success.
The turning point came when two years later, Pop Mart unexpectedly received an investment of 2 million yuan. From then on, Wang Ning began to buy the copyrights of a series of famous characters such as Molly, Skull Panda, Dimoo The Monsters...
In 2016, Pop Mart launched “Roboshops” vending machines located in a series of shopping malls and public places, thereby increasing the company's recognition.
A series of Pop Mart facilities have been expanded worldwide, from France, Malaysia, Thailand, the Netherlands... to date there have been up to 80 stores.
In 2020, Wang Ning was named "Top 40 Chinese Entrepreneurs Under 40" by Fortune.
According to Forbes, billionaire Wang Ning is ranked 945th richest person in the world with total assets of about 3.5 billion yuan. He owns 45% of Pop Mart's shares.
Pop Mart is also one of the leading groups in the field of art toys. The cost of owning a rare art toy and their sophistication and meticulousness show that these toy models can be compared to other luxury collectibles such as watches, handbags, shoes...
The turning point of this toy line was the appearance of the blind box. The blind boxes would be wrapped in many layers, and the player would not know which model they had chosen until they opened it.
From that foundation, another form was born called "secret" - secret model. Secret items are designed with completely different colors and shapes, with a random winning chance of only about 0.52%, always a very rare model and sought after by many people.
Commenting on the factors that contributed to his success, Wang Ning said that it was thanks to the spiritual value that Pop Mart brought: “When faced with spiritual consumption, everyone will become extremely generous. When people no longer have to worry about food and clothing, they are willing to pay for things that can bring them spiritual comfort.”
Statistics from Statista show that the global art toy market is estimated to reach a revenue of 120 billion USD by 2023, showing the explosive growth of these items.
