# Labubu Made Pop Mart a Billion Dollar Story. Can the Toy Maker Survive Without It > The snaggle toothed doll turned Pop Mart into one of the biggest toy stories in the world. The company is now betting on other characters, other regions, and other formats before the craze cools off. - Source: Life Channel - Canonical URL: https://lifechannel.one/article/labubu-made-pop-mart-a-billion-dollar-story-can-the-toy-maker-survive-without-it - Author: Sienna Blackwood - Section: Money & Life - Published: 2026-08-06T22:52:14.244Z - Updated: 2026-08-06T22:52:14.244Z - Tags: Pop Mart, Labubu, toys, business --- For the first half of 2025, Pop Mart's Monsters line, the family of collectible figures that includes Labubu, brought in 4.81 billion yuan, roughly 671 million dollars, a jump of 668 percent from the year before. The line is on pace to become a billion dollar business on its own, and at points in 2025 Labubu outsold both Barbie and Hot Wheels, two of the most established toy franchises in the world, run by a company far bigger than Pop Mart. The blind box format that made Labubu famous is also what makes its future uncertain. Figures sell for around 27.99 dollars a box, with resale prices running well above that for rare pulls, a scarcity driven model that has powered plenty of toy crazes before Labubu and cooled just as fast once the mystery wore off. Pop Mart itself is not pretending otherwise, leaning further into that same scarcity playbook with mini Labubu phone charms and a steady stream of new character variants meant to keep collectors chasing the next drop. What Pop Mart is betting on beyond the doll itself is a wider bench. The company's lineup includes other characters built the same way, designer figures with their own fan bases and their own blind box drops, none of which depend on Labubu staying at the center of internet culture forever. That diversification is the real story analysts are watching, whether Pop Mart built a toy company or built a machine for turning any character into a hit, with Labubu simply the one that proved the machine works. History is not on Labubu's side if it is judged as a standalone fad. Collectible toy crazes tend to follow the same arc, a sudden spike in demand followed by a fade once scarcity marketing stops feeling fun and starts feeling like a chore. Whether Pop Mart avoids that fate depends less on Labubu holding its current heat and more on whether the next character, and the one after that, can do for the company what Labubu already has. For now, the toy maker is not waiting to find out. It is already selling the follow up. --- Originally published by Life Channel. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://lifechannel.one/article/labubu-made-pop-mart-a-billion-dollar-story-can-the-toy-maker-survive-without-it.