The blind spot in Pop Mart's global expansion
Company's UK accounts paint a chaotic picture
This week’s sell-off in Pop Mart highlights the fragility of consumer crazes. After years of explosive growth driven by Labubu dolls and blind-box collectibles, investors are worrying about margins, costs and whether the frenzy can last.
Since 2022, Pop Mart has transformed itself into a global IP and lifestyle brand, driven by the explosive success of Labubu and the “The Monsters” franchise. It expanded rapidly through TikTok-driven hype, celebrity endorsements, resale culture, and aggressive international growth. Investors also gained confidence in its hybrid model spanning flagship stores, vending machines, online commerce and licensing, helping push the stock from roughly HK$10–20 in 2022 to a peak of HK$339 in 2025.
But the rally has been reversing for months. Concerns over slowing overseas growth, heavy reliance on Labubu, rising costs and questions about whether Pop Mart can create another blockbuster IP have steadily weighed on sentiment. On a 13 May analyst call, the company warned that higher production and operating costs could squeeze profit margins in 2026, reinforcing investor concerns and extending the stock’s decline.
Few would doubt the company, which joined the Hang Seng Index in September 2025, still has global growth potential. The question is whether Pop Mart can maintain the fan enthusiasm and operational discipline that turned Labubu into a cultural phenomenon as it expands at breakneck speed.
Which all makes Pop Mart’s next UK filings more interesting than they might sound. A clue to what lies beneath the growth story may emerge when the company files British accounts with Companies House in September 2026.
The last filings, largely ignored during the Labubu craze, painted a surprisingly messy operational picture. Pop Mart’s two UK entities received compulsory strike off notices before filing overdue accounts.
More troublingly, the auditor issued a qualified opinion for Pop Mart UK Corporation, the subsidiary responsible for British operations, after the company failed to carry out a physical stock count.
The accounts cover a pivotal year in Pop Mart’s UK expansion, including the June 2024 opening of its flagship on London’s Oxford Street. Yet its auditor, Shinewing Wilson Accountancy, was unable to verify the existence and valuation of opening inventory.
Pop Mart UK Corporation is owned by Pop Mart UK, a holding company for subsidiaries across Britain, the US, the Middle East and Latin America. The two entities have also changed registered addresses repeatedly in recent years, moving between serviced office-providers in Canary Wharf and corporate administration addresses.
This is not unusual for fast-growing overseas subsidiaries. But frequent address changes, late filings and qualified audits together suggest a business whose administrative infrastructure is still catching up with the pace of expansion.
For those trying to assess the operational maturity of Pop Mart’s overseas operations, the concern is less any individual filing anomaly than the cumulative impression of a company still assembling its administrative infrastructure while scaling at speed. For a company of Pop Mart’s size and profile, basic subsidiary compliance would normally be tight.
None of this suggests imminent financial trouble. But for a company increasingly positioning itself as a global consumer heavyweight, investors are entitled to expect tighter controls.
It matters because Europe is now one of the company’s fastest-growing regions—in 2025 the region saw a 506% jump in revenue to RMB1.45 billion—and London is now its designated European headquarters.
The next set of UK accounts should give a better sense of whether the systems behind the blind-box boom are becoming as global as the brand itself.
At its London stores—including a new 5,000 square foot space near Covent Garden which opened last month—the long queues are gone, but a steady cluster of Gen Z shoppers still shake blind boxes in search of treasure. Hopefully by now the retailer knows exactly how many are stored out the back.
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