Labubu’s trendy play IP is setting off a frenzy around the world. Its parent company, Bubble Mart, has skyrocketed in overseas revenue, and Labubu has become a “plastic Moutai” and a “new currency”. This article will provide an in-depth analysis of the business logic behind Labubu, exploring how it has unearthed huge business opportunities from small categories, as well as the profound insights behind its success, consumer psychology, globalization strategies, and market segment needs.
At 4 a.m., 2,000 people set up tents and lined up outside a shopping mall in London; In the smoke of Buddhist temples in Bangkok, Thai monks recite consecrated scriptures for Labubu; Tokyo Ginza launched emergency flow restrictions because there were too many people rushing to buy Labubu; In front of the Bubble Mart store in South Korea, consumers queued up all night and even quarreled, which attracted the police……
According to the data of Shoplus superstores, the sales of Labubu’s parent company, Bubble Mart, on TikTok in Thailand soared in the past three days, with a month-on-month increase of more than 357%, ranking second in the sales soaring list. The blind box sold nearly 3,000 pieces in the past three days, with sales exceeding $75,000. On TikTok Shop in the United States, Bubble Mart expects sales to reach $6 million to $7 million in April, an increase of 18 places month-on-month, jumping to the top of the growth rate. During the 618 period, Labubu soared to the top of Alibaba’s overseas searches.
These phenomena are not isolated but epitome of Labubu’s global frenzy.
Bubble Mart’s 2024 financial report shows that its overseas revenue has skyrocketed by 216%, while Labubu has contributed more than 35% of global sales.
The once inconspicuous plastic doll is now known as “plastic Moutai” and “new currency”.
01 When “monsters” rule the world
Labubu was created by Hong Kong-based designer Lung Ka-shing, based on an elf from the Nordic forest. Pointed ears, round eyes, nine serrated teeth, and a “steal” smile…… The design breaks the traditional aesthetics, allowing Labubu to retain the cute side of plush toys, but also has its funny and rebellious character.
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In April this year, the Labubu3.0 series was launched globally, triggering a boom of “hard to find” in various places. The New York Times commented: “This is the stamp collecting craze of the 21st century, but even crazier.” ”
Not only that, Labubu is trading hot in the secondary market, with some popular models at a premium of dozens of times, and it has also spawned peripheral businesses such as leasing and decoration. At the just-concluded Yongle 2025 Spring Auction, a 131cm tall mint Labubu sold for a high price of 1.08 million yuan, setting a new record for the auction of trendy toys.
Source: Weibo @bubble mart
Driven by Labubu and other products, Bubble Mart’s overseas revenue soared by 480% year-on-year in the first quarter, the growth rate of the American market soared to 895%-900%, and the European market also reached an astonishing increase of 600%-605%.
In order to support the huge enthusiasm for overseas buying, in 2025, Bubble Mart will launch the largest organizational adjustment in five years: the establishment of four regional headquarters (Greater China, Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe), which is fully endowed with independent decision-making power. “These regional headquarters are not just executive agencies, they can formulate more targeted market strategies.” The head of Bubble Mart’s international business explained.
At present, all overseas general managers of Bubble Mart are foreigners, and more than 90% of them are nationals of their home countries. By the end of 2024, there were more than 1,000 overseas employees, more than 95% of whom were foreigners.
Labubu’s global reach is inseparable from the promotion of user-generated content (UGC). Users have further expanded the scope of Labubu’s communication by creating secondary emoticons. According to the data, Labubu’s secondary emoticon has exceeded 1 billion times. In addition, users have spontaneously organized a “baby swap party”, which has covered 50 countries around the world.
According to the financial report, as of the end of 2024, the number of Bubble Mart members reached 46.083 million, a year-on-year increase of 34.1%, the membership revenue contribution rate was as high as 92.7%, and the repurchase rate remained at a high level of about 50%.
In addition to the promotion of UGC, Labubu’s success is also inseparable from the boost of the platform’s algorithm. TikTok strongly binds the “blind box unboxing” label to Labubu, and the related video traffic is tilted by 30%. This algorithmic boost has greatly increased Labubu’s exposure on social media, further expanding its influence.
As Labubu’s popularity gradually increases, the popularity of its related peripheral products has also increased.
In recent weeks, the search popularity of “Labubu”-related keywords on Amazon US has soared, of which the word “Labubu” has entered the top ten of the rankings this week, driving a surge in popularity in many categories such as doll clothing, doll accessories, and stickers. As of press time, there are more than 2,000 Labubu peripheral products on Amazon.
Among them, the best-selling category is Labubu-related clothing sets. On Amazon’s “Doll Clothing & Accessories Sets” new product best-selling list, the top five products in terms of sales are all clothing products that meet Labubu’s size (or use Labubu as a “model” directly in the product image). Among them, the top “workwear” sold more than 1,000 last month.
Source: Amazon
On other cross-border e-commerce platforms, such products are also very popular. On Temu, some Labubu clothing has sold thousands of orders, and Labubu transparent protective cases, storage boxes and other related peripherals have also sold hundreds of orders.
In its latest research report, JPMorgan Chase & Co. sees Labubu as the “next Hello Kitty”. Analysts at the bank believe that Labubu and Hello Kitty are very similar in character style and business model, and are rapidly emerging as a new generation of super IP.
02 No need to discuss “tulips”
With the explosion of Labubu, the market voice has also shown polarization.
Some voices began to discuss the path and method of “Chinese IP” to successfully go overseas, while others began to worry that Labubu was the next “tulip bubble”.
In fact, Labubu’s success is a precise grasp of consumer psychology. According to the “Generation Z Trendy Play Report”, 72% of consumers believe that “Labubu represents my rebellious personality”. This emotional resonance allows consumers to project their pursuit of rebellion and individuality onto Labubu.
In consumer psychology, identity is an important psychological phenomenon. Consumers express their identity and values by purchasing and using a certain product. Through its unique design and brand positioning, Labubu has successfully attracted young consumers who pursue individuality and rebellion, allowing them to project their identity into Labubu.
For example, Labubu’s keychain design hits their social needs – hanging on the bag instantly becomes a “circle identity authentication”. “Hermès has become Labubu distribution” is not only active in hot searches, but also a real consumption scene.
At the Hermès show not long ago, the most discussed on the scene was not Hermès bags, but Labubu. Because the fashion show not only releases new products, but also an important social scene for invited guests, the Labubu pendants of many guest handbags have become social capital and a signal of “understanding fashion and trend”.
This model breaks through the traditional stereotype of brands defining trends in one direction, and shifts to a more interactive and two-way value output model, where content and narratives are co-created by the public, and the concept of “uselessness” is highlighted.
Source: Weibo @bubble mart
As Wang Ning, the founder of Bubble Mart, said, all consumption behaviors are solving two things: one is satisfaction, and the other is presence. It is not easy to really make people spend money to buy a pure, non-functional product. The reason why some luxury goods like to collaborate with artists is that “useless” things are truly timeless. As long as a product has functional attributes, it means a short life cycle and innate decay.
Recently, he even threw out remarks against the sky, saying that if Molly’s head was pulled out as a USB flash drive, everyone would definitely only buy one. Because everyone will default to functionality: if you already have one, there is no need to buy so many USB flash drives, and consumption will stagnate. But it is precisely because Molly and Labubu are useless and just make people happy, that everyone will keep buying, one after another.
This metaphor was later refined into a more concise expression by netizens, such as “You can buy only one USB flash drive, but you can save a bunch of toys”, which is used to emphasize the essential difference between functional items and emotional value items. As Wang Ning said, useless use is the eternal value – just like the artworks in museums are never renewed, but they carry the emotional resonance of human beings spanning thousands of years.
Wang Yandong of BMI Xingyuan Consulting believes that the essence of “useless use is eternal value” in business is to transform products from “functional tools” to “emotional media”, and use irreplaceable emotional experience and social identity to build a rigid demand for consumption beyond “practical logic”.
The reason why this value proposition is “timeless” is that it anchors human emotional needs – even if it is a small desire to collect, or an emotion of showing off and comparing.
03 Every small category has big business
Looking further, the success of Labubu is not only the success of a trendy play IP, but also a successful case of segmenting demand going overseas.
Liang Ning put forward many profound insights on business and demand in the book “Real Demand”, among which the most widely circulated is the analysis of business closed loop, she pointed out that “business closed loop is to gain insight into demand and provide value; Reach a consensus with the customer/market, get deals and relationships, and therefore get money and resources; So as to develop yourself, invest in your competitiveness, and give yourself a more survival advantage.”
“Insight into needs, providing value” is the foundation of business, the psychological needs brought by Labubu are a kind of needs, and the practical needs in the physical sense are also a kind of needs, we need to use mechanization to free our hands, but also need to use automation to improve efficiency, “laziness” is the driving force of human progress.
Taking the common courtyard economy in Europe and the United States as an example, Europe, the United States, Australia, etc. occupy the world’s main private lawn and garden markets. According to the prospectus of Daye shares, gardening enthusiasts in the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom exceed 40%, 60% and 49% of the total adult population of their countries, respectively. The mowing frequency is generally 2 times a week or 3 times a week in summer and rainy seasons, and the mowing frequency in off-season such as autumn is generally 1 time a week or 2 times a week or 2 times in 3 weeks. In other words, the cycle of uninterrupted maintenance and repair throughout the year exceeds 8 months.
In the first quarter of 2025, China’s exports of smart lawn mowers reached US$1.01 billion, a surge of US$375 million from the same period last year, a year-on-year increase of 58.92%.
The lawn mowing robot products of No. 9 Company have been exported to more than 30 countries and regions such as Germany, France, the United States, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, with a revenue of 861 million yuan last year. Ecovacs lawn mower robots’ overseas revenue and sales in 2024 increased by 186.7% and 271.7% year-on-year, respectively. In response to the increase in orders, Daye completed the acquisition of Germany’s AL-KO company earlier this year and added a new production base in Austria.
Source: IDC
Related to the courtyard is also the field of security, and Chinese brands have a unique advantage in the global consumer camera market pattern. In the first quarter of 2025, EZVIZ topped the global list with shipments of 4.203 million units. According to the financial report of EZVIZ Network, the company’s revenue in the first quarter was 1.38 billion yuan, up 11.6% year-on-year; net profit attributable to the parent company was 138 million yuan, up 10.2% year-on-year.
Xiangjiang Electric Appliances, which started as an OEM, made a big business with a small kettle. According to the Frost & Sullivan report, in terms of exports from China to the United States and Canada in 2023, Xiangjiang Electric’s electric kettles account for about 21.4% and 32.3% of the market share in the relevant categories defined by the General Administration of Customs of China, respectively. It is no exaggeration to say that one in five kettles you see in North America comes from Hong Kong Electric.
In addition to the above common needs caused by “laziness”, there are also some consumption tracks generated by the personal needs of consumers, which are niche but explosive.
In the US market of TikTok, a simple shoe rack produced in China with a discounted price of $9.88 has sold more than 1.2w in the past 7 days (6.18-6.24), and the daily sales on June 20 reached a maximum of 4,576 orders, reaching the top spot in the US category in one fell swoop. In the same U.S. market, a 2-in-1 watermelon fork slicer sold 23,500 units in the past 28 days, with a total sales of $244,900, ranking third in the U.S. category sales list, and its product popularity index continues to soar. This 2-in-1 watermelon fork slicer originated in Yiwu, China, and the same product has been popular on Amazon since last year and has become a sensation on TikTok this year. In the Thai list, MYONLY eyebrow pencil from China performed particularly well, ranking among the top three on the list with its practical and convenient rotation design and cost-effective strategy, becoming a “must-have item” in the daily makeup of local consumers.
Source: FastMoss
“6 out of 10 wigs in the world come from Xuchang” is a well-known saying in the circle, and it also directly expresses the influence of Xuchang wigs on a global scale. “Xuchang wig” has been ranked among the top three overseas best-selling lists of AliExpress all year round, and the local area is the world’s largest hair product distribution center and export base. As the first stock of domestic hair products, Rebecca has been selected into the list of China’s 500 most valuable brands for two consecutive years, with Rebecca’s revenue of about 305 million yuan in the first quarter of this year, a year-on-year increase of 11.26%; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was about 6.3606 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.59%.
Also a “business on the head”, the hair straightening comb brand TYMO has developed and produced a hair straightening comb that can heat up to 200 degrees in 30 seconds in response to the unique hair quality problems of people of color, with high-density comb teeth, to directly complete the straightening action during the combing process. On Amazon, TYMO’s average monthly sales of hair straighteners have remained around $800,000 in the past three months, with a monthly peak of more than $3 million.
Coincidentally, the Group’s baby diapers and sanitary napkins in Africa ranked first in terms of sales in 2023, with a market share of 20% and 14% respectively. According to the prospectus, its sub-brand of Le Comfort alone will reach US$334 million from January to September 2024, with a gross profit margin of more than 35.4%.
The success of these brands proves the great potential of subdivisions to go overseas. As Peter Thiel said in “From 0 to 1”: “Competition is for losers, and the real winners find their own unique value in the subdivision.” “These brands have successfully expanded globally by finding their unique value in their segments, providing consumers with more choices and valuable references for other brands.
In the future, with the acceleration of globalization and the diversification of consumer demand, opportunities to go overseas in subdivision tracks will continue to emerge. Brands need to continue to explore and innovate, tap into big business in small categories, and Labubu’s story is just the beginning
