Pop Mart Fights Back Against "Short Sellers"

Author | Xie Yunzi

Editor | Zhang Fan

Since August 26th last year, after Pop Mart reached a peak of HK$339.80 per share, its stock price has been continuously falling for nearly five months, dropping by more than 40%.

The prevailing view in the industry is that the fluctuation of Pop Mart's market value stems from the fading premium of its phenomenon and the IP LABUBU.

36Kr checked the Dewu APP and found that the average transaction price of a single blind box in the "High-Energy Ahead Series" of LABUBU 3.0 is 100.25 yuan, which is 23% lower than the highest price in the past 90 days. Compared with the highest transaction price of 639.32 yuan after the release of Pop Mart's "Weird Flavor Convenience Store" in June last year, it has dropped by more than 84%.

Even more exaggerated is that on the "Hundred Billion Subsidy" channel of the Tmall platform, the lowest price of an unopened and unbagged blind box is 86 yuan, which is even lower than Pop Mart's official retail price.

Images from Dewu and Tmall APPs

The anxiety in the consumer market has spread to the capital market. According to Wind data, since August 2025, the number of short-selling shares of Pop Mart that have not been closed has risen sharply, once approaching 10,000 shares.

On January 19th, 2026, Pop Mart decided to spend HK$251 million to repurchase 1.4 million shares of the company, with a repurchase price per share ranging from HK$177.7 to HK$181.2. This is Pop Mart's first repurchase since 2024, and this move is also regarded as a strong signal from the company's management to convey confidence to investors.

Image from Wind

To some extent, the "wealth-creation myth" of Pop Mart was shattered by Wang Ning, the founder of the company.

With the blessing of the star effect, Pop Mart has become one of the most successful Chinese companies going global, and LABUBU is indeed a traffic magnet. The financial report shows that the THE MONSTERS series where LABUBU belongs had a revenue of up to 4.81 billion yuan in the first half of 2025, accounting for nearly one-third of Pop Mart's total revenue.

But it was also from this time that Pop Mart began to crack down on scalpers and "actively increase the supply".

Wang Ning once said in an interview with the media that after September (2024), the monthly sales of LABUBU might be close to 10 million pieces. The demand worldwide is too high. "We are using various means to prevent it from being maliciously hyped."

The Dewu APP also shows that since the launch of the "Weird Flavor Convenience Store" series, Pop Mart has replenished the stock of LABUBU vinyl plush products six times. The effect of the increased production capacity was quickly reflected in the market price of the new LABUBU 4.0 products, that is, the mini version of LABUBU, which in turn impacted the scalpers' original logic of "hoarding goods for speculation".

At the same time, Pop Mart is also intentionally cooling down the online market, deploying robot stores, and guiding consumers to return to offline. Judging from the current results, Pop Mart has gradually regained the pricing power of its products through various means.

This also enables consumers to buy ordinary products at a price close to the official retail price, and buy hidden or relatively scarce hot-selling products at a slightly higher and more objective market price. From the perspective of enterprise development, Pop Mart has also maximized the company's net profit margin and maintained the overall image of high-quality IPs.

Deutsche Bank also pointed out in a report that the production capacity of LABUBU has increased from 10 million pieces in the first half of 2025 to an average of 50 million pieces per month by the end of the year. This measure is expected to bring an adjusted net profit of about 14.5 billion yuan in 2025.

After LABUBU experienced a process from being extremely popular to a "sharp decline", the old problems of Pop Mart's diversification and the life cycle of IPs have been brought to the surface again.

Surprisingly, although the premium of Pop Mart's main IP products in the secondary market has decreased, the scarcity has increased.

In October last year, LABUBU collaborated with MOYNAT, a century-old luxury brand under LVMH. Immediately afterwards, Xingxingren launched a joint promotion with Heytea. Almost at the same time, Pop Mart recruited Wu Yue, the former president of LV in China, which also brought more possibilities for its subsequent diversified and high-end operations.

On the day of the repurchase announcement, Pop Mart also cooperated with Honor to launch the "Honor 500 Pro MOLLY 20th Anniversary Limited Edition" mobile phone. This product is not just a simple co-branded one. In addition to having the image of MOLLY printed on the back of the phone, the system also provides an exclusive MOLLY UI theme, MOLLY boot animation, MOLLY photo watermark, etc.

Image from Honor's official Weibo

Fairly speaking, in terms of the time cycle for cultivating popular IPs, Pop Mart is already an efficient "popular product maker" in the industry.

In the first half of last year, THE MONSTERS, MOLLY, SKULLPANDA, CRYBABY, and DIMOO all contributed revenues of over 1 billion yuan, and there were also 13 artist IPs such as HIRONO Xiaoye, Xingxingren, and HACIPUPU with revenues exceeding 100 million yuan. Of course, for Pop Mart to become a global platform centered on IPs, it still needs to find a balance between increasing production capacity and maintaining scarcity.

Judging from the current market sentiment, many consumer companies, including Kweichow Moutai, Pop Mart, and Midea Group, are conducting share repurchases collectively. This may reflect, from the side, the optimistic expectations of enterprises for the future rebound of consumption in the economic cycle.

Another interesting comparison is that while LABUBU's price is approaching the official retail price, Feitian Moutai has also "unprecedentedly" achieved a retail price of 1,499 yuan. Although the development logics and customer groups of the two companies are different, the essence is to correct the irrational market prices. After the "self-regulation" of market supply and demand, the development of enterprises may enter a truly sustainable new stage.

In contrast, many institutions have also recognized Pop Mart's share repurchase this time.

Morgan Stanley said that currently, Pop Mart's long-term growth logic is clear, and it is estimated that the company's net profit in 2025 will reach 12.6 billion yuan. Other analysts believe that Pop Mart's large-scale share repurchase this time is expected to support the stock price, and the company's performance in the 2025 annual report and the first quarter of 2026 will be strongly supported.

As of before the publication of this article, Pop Mart's stock price was HK$195.5 per share, down 0.86% slightly. Since the announcement of the share repurchase on the evening of January 19th, its stock price has risen by 7.96%.

*Disclaimer:

The content of this article only represents the author's views.

The market is risky, and investment should be cautious. In any case, the information in this article or the opinions expressed do not constitute investment advice to anyone. Before making an investment decision, if necessary, investors must consult professionals and make decisions carefully. We have no intention to provide underwriting services or any services that require specific qualifications or licenses for the trading parties.

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This article is from the WeChat official account "36Kr Finance". Author: Xie Yunzi, Zhang Fan. Published by 36Kr with authorization.