Weekly #16: Can Pop Mart be Mattel? 🎀 Keep needs to keep up🏃🏻‍♀️, China reacts to Aspartame warning ⚠️ | Following the yuan

Every toy company either has a dream to be Disney — as Pop Mart’s CEO Wang Ning once aspired — or, I suppose, Barbie's IP owner Mattel.

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening! Today, I realized that I messed up with the Twitter Space schedule 😱 but that’s Ok. I tell myself that only few would tune in anyway.

BUT if you want to be the selected few, and listen to a replay on the conversation of me with

Baiguan - China Insights, Data, Context

’s editor Mu Chen on some parallel trends between China & the U.S., you can click here! I’ve also recently talked to Yishu Wang, the co-founder of China marketing consultancy Half A World about ‘What does being canceled mean in China’ here. With the plug sorted, let’s dive into the weekly news roundup:

1. Can Pop Mart be Mattel? 🎀

The Fact: Chinese top toy maker Pop Mart International Group (9992.HK), which went public in Hong Kong in December 2020, recently faced distraint from a Beijing court and was required to pay over 17 million yuan (US$2.35 million). Despite Pop Mart saying it already made full payment, Chinese domestic media including Yicai and SK News Agency used the opportunity to analyze its underwhelming performance in recent years. 

Once propelled to fame by the Japanese-pop-culture-inspired blind box fanatic, Pop Mart is now dedicated to distancing itself from this label, as its market cap shrunk from HK$150 billion while being listed to around HK$25.77 billion, or ⅙, almost three years later. It has been aggressive with its overseas expansion but the revenue from non-China market only accounted for around 10% of the group wide 4.6 billion yuan (US$638.9 million).

Dig Deeper: Every toy company either has a dream to be Disney — as Pop Mart’s CEO Wang Ning once aspired — or, I suppose, Barbie’s IP owner Mattel.