Unlike the beginning of Disney, early Disney had a story first, and then an IP. Bubble-Mart is the opposite, so Bubble-mart needs to face the problem of its IP's "character attributes," i.e., set the character characteristics and story background of its IP characters, so as to achieve the unification of the fan community's impression of IP characters.

Recently, bubble mat (09992.HK) to open the first dessert shop in Qinhuangdao news caused concern. According to media reports, the store is the first direct store of Bubble Mart's dessert brand POPBAKERY. POP BAKERY has stars, SKULLPANDA ice cream, DIMOO, labubu butter cookies, MOLLY chocolate and other products.

Previously, Bubble Mart tried many new IP commercial scenes, such as home appliances, movies, urban parks and so on. Some experts pointed out to financial news that BubbleMart's main business is to commercialize IP and monetize, and expects more new scenarios to be expanded in the future, but to commercialize many new IP scenarios, there are still many problems and many risks to solve.

01

There have been trials earlier, and commercialization scenarios are increasing.

Previously, POPBAKERY has been testing the water in the way of pop-up shops. Since February 2026, POP BAKERY has landed in Qingdao, Chengdu, Xi'an, Shenzhen, Wuhan and other places in the form of flash mob. As of May 11, Bubble Mart already has 21 themed dessert pop-up locations across the country.

Some sources pointed out that unlike traditional pop-up stores, the Qinhuangdao direct store added tea products for the first time. In the future, Bubble Mart may further launch its own tea and coffee products.

How is the current progress in opening a direct store? Does this mean the model is ripe and Bubble Mart will invest more? On May 14, Financial News contacted Bubble Mart about this, but no response was received as of press time.

Bubble Mart started with the production and sale of IP hand models, and its launch of labubu series dolls and hand models allowed it to quickly accumulate popularity. However, recent phenomena show that Bubble Mart is no longer limited to the production of dolls and action figures, and is also actively expanding more new IP commercial scenarios.

Previously, Bubble Mart launched labubu refrigerator, using the global limited sale strategy, each only 999 units, the unified price of 5999 yuan. But after the launch, the price was raised to 999,000 yuan at one point. Also in March 2026, Bubble Mart and Sony Pictures jointly announced that they would develop and produce a Labubu film. Bubble Mart management said in a phone call on May 13, that the Labubu Grand Film is in the script creation stage and the film is expected to deepen the emotional connection between consumers and Labubu.

In addition, Labubu has opened Bubble-Mart City Park in Beijing. In addition to the large rides, the park features 13 carnival games. Similar to Disney's (DIS.US) park, visitors can earn prizes including Labubu pillows through interactive games. Hu Jian, vice president of the Bubble Mart Group and general manager of the park, recently told the media that the park has already achieved profitability in 2024.

Li Weihua, an expert in chain operation, said that the main business of bubble Matt is to realize commercial realization of IP. Selling dolls and blind boxes is just a way to open the market, but for mining the commercial value of IP, doll sales are far from enough. It is foreseeable that in the future, Bubble Mart will have more IP commercial scenarios. This diversification can maximize resource efficiency on the one hand, and the diversified industries themselves can promote each other and achieve complementarity.

02

Performance growth slows, and Bubble Mart needs to answer new growth points in the future

Recently, Bubble Mart is attracting attention from the capital markets because of the slowdown in its performance growth. According to its latest quarterly report, the company's overall earnings in the first quarter of 2026 grew 75 percent to 80 percent year-on-year, compared with a slower growth rate of 165 percent to 170 percent in the same period in 2025. On March 25, its brand founder Wang Ning set the tone, "do not less than 20% by 2026," far lower than the 30% or more the institution had previously expected.

There is a view that the capital market needs Bubble Mart to explain where the future growth space is, and many of the current attempts to commercialize new IP scenarios are footnotes to this problem.

However, the annual report shows that the sales of handcrafts and blind boxes are still the basic revenue of Poomart. The revenue of Poomart derivatives and other projects is 4.47 billion yuan in 2025, accounting for only 12 percent of the total revenue.

Li Weihua analyzed the financial news that Bubble Mart will run many new IP commercial scenarios, but also solve many problems and face many risks. For example, the question of sequence, which scene to focus on first and which to focus on later, needs to be carefully considered. Secondly, how to ensure that resources are coordinated across various commercial scenarios, and finally, how can product quality be ensured, because the current new commercial scenario of Bubble Mart involves a large number of industries, and the operational logic behind each industry is different, and it is easy to lose everything if not handled properly.

In addition, Li Weihua also pointed out that unlike Disney's early development, Disney has a story first, and then an IP. Bubble-Mart is the opposite, so Bubble-mart needs to face the problem of its IP's "character attributes," which is to set the character characteristics, story backgrounds and realize the unified impression of its IP characters by the fan community, which is very important for its film business and its urban parks business.