Labubu triggers a global phenomenon: After the Monster series triggered a wave of popularity in the fourth quarter of 2024, Pop Mart launched the Labubu 3.0 series in April 2025, which once again set off the global trendy toy market and pushed Labubu's popularity and influence in the global field to a new high. According to our observation, Labubu has become the most popular trendy toy IP in the world and is fanatically sought after all over the world. Its search volume on social media and search software is far ahead of other classic, trendy toy IPs. At the same time, due to the limited sales strategy, there are long queues outside many offline stores around the world. Many celebrities and Internet celebrities (including Beckham) posted their Labubu products on social media, which not only attracted traffic but also further pushed up the popularity of Labubu. There are also profound reasons behind Labubu's explosion.
Cross-cultural global consumer goods
Forbes magazine website quoted an analysis report from Deutsche Bank, saying that few IPs can break cultural barriers and be accepted by Asian culture and loved by Western pop music and sports stars. At present, China's trendy toy industry has begun to break through different cultural backgrounds and geographical boundaries through unique product design, rich sales channels and international development strategies, and has leapt into a global consumer product with cross-cultural attributes. Chinese creativity is moving towards the world stage at an unprecedented speed and breadth.
Patience and innovation
For Chinese trendy toy brands, fine design and continuous innovation are the "lifeline" of products. For example, how to design the movement lines of offline stores to make consumers feel more rhythmic when shopping; how to place display cabinets to attract consumers; how to optimize the decoration and maintenance process to enhance the experience, etc. Pop Mart and Hong Kong artist Long Jiasheng continue to iterate the design, from the first generation of the "Forest Concert" series to the 3.0 series, gradually upgrading the cultural symbol attributes of the "ugly and cute" character setting, which is inseparable from long-term polishing and technological breakthroughs.
Mature industrial chain
Behind the popularity of LABUBU, the support of Made in China is indispensable. It is precisely relying on this strong manufacturing foundation that Chinese trendy toy brands can obtain strong product support in overseas markets, and the supply capacity of the industrial chain also provides support for sustained growth.
Looking to the future, China's trendy toy industry still has a large room for growth in the global market. According to the "China Trendy Toy and Animation Industry Development Report (2024)", the total value of China's trendy toy industry is expected to climb to 110.1 billion yuan by 2026, with an average annual growth rate of more than 20%.
If Chinese cultural IP wants to continue to break the circle and "long red", it is inseparable from innovation and patience, and it is inseparable from the strong support of Made in China. It is necessary to further establish an emotional bond with consumers about life attitude and cultural identity, let "patient polishing" and "innovation breakthrough" resonate, and continue to exert efforts in content innovation and commercial sustainability, so that cultural products can be more attractive and vital, win the favor of consumers, and finally form classics and achieve a paradigm shift of "global popularity".
