Customers will browse a Pop Mart display filled with Lovebu characters and collectible characters from the Monsters series, held in Cheong-Gin, China on June 16, 2025.
Chen Sing | Getty Images News | Getty Images
BEIJING – Shares of Popmart, the Chinese toy company behind the recent Lovebu trend, continued to fall on Friday after Morgan Stanley removed the stock from its focus list.
Pop Mart’s Hong Kong listed stocks last exceeded 5%, extending the slide from the previous session, which collapsed at 5.3%. This has brought high-flying stocks on track towards its first negative week since early May. We have lost more than 13% so far. Profits since the start of the year exceeded 160%.
Morgan Stanley said he was replacing Pop Mart with insurance company PICC P&C late Wednesday, replacing it with its China and Hong Kong focus list.
The investment bank did not elaborate on why it deleted Pop Mart stocks. On June 10, the company raised the toy company’s price target to HKD 302 ($38.47), up from HKD 224.
“We believe that Pop Mart’s exponential growth in 2025 has been fully factored into the market, but we may not have been strongly convicted of the long-term outlook,” equity analyst Dustin Way and the team said in a June 10 report.
“But given that high-level evaluation, we do not believe that this level of outperformance will continue in the next few quarters,” the report said.
Pop Mart stock hit an intraday high of 283.40 HKD on June 12th.
The Beijing-based toy company has rapidly expanded overseas with online sales platforms and physical stores, including the US and the UK.
Pop Mart first gained popularity with its “blind box” concept. With this concept, consumers will have the chance to buy unmarked boxes that cost around $5 to $10 each, and get unique figurines and build their collections.
Lovebu’s trends
Over the past few months, the company’s “Love” series toys featuring elf-like characters have attracted attention from New York Magazine and the New York Times, focusing on fashion and culture.
Pop Mart is also capturing demand by releasing Labubu fillings, pillows and related products. The 4-foot tall Lovebu was sold at a Beijing auction earlier this month for $170,000 worth of it. Many of the more affordable versions later went out of stock in mainland China.
Jacob Cooke, co-founder and CEO of WPIC Marketing + Technologies, told CNBC on Friday. The company helps foreign brands such as Vitamix and clinical sell online in China and other parts of Asia.
He turned his interest in capybara stuffed toys last year. Miniso, a Chinese retailer, has stores in the US and other countries, and was one of the leading sellers of stuffed animals.
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Cook saw Pop Mart as “luckiest of all things,” but he noted that it reflects a growing interest in toys for adults as well as children.
Overseas sales of Pop Mart in 2024 are showing rising toy prices, already surpassing the company’s total sales in 2021.
The company reported total revenue of 44.9 billion yuan ($624.6 million) in 2024 in 2021.
