Pop Mart International Group · 9992 · HKEX
My estimate (a forecast, not a fact)
CNY 182.28 / share
Market price, 15 Oct 2026
CNY 124.04
Difference
+47.0%
About Pop Mart
Pop Mart designs collectible figures and sells them itself, in its own stores, in robot vending shops and online. The famous format is the blind box: you only find out which figure you got once you open it. The characters are created with independent artists and owned by Pop Mart. Labubu belongs to a family called THE MONSTERS. That ownership is why Pop Mart keeps about 70% of every yuan of sales after the cost of the product.
The surge and the hangover
In 2023 Pop Mart had RMB 6.3 billion of revenue. In 2025 it had RMB 37.1 billion, and an operating margin of 45.5%. The median toy company earns about 17%.
Then it turned. Compare the first half of 2026 with the second half of 2025: revenue fell 26%. China was down 3%. Outside China it was down 53%, and online sales outside China fell 73%. That's where the resale mania lived.
So the market can get Pop Mart wrong in two ways: by treating 2025 as the new normal, or by treating it as the next Beanie Babies. I don't think the filings support either. China is still growing, and 6 characters now bring in more than RMB 2 billion each.
The drivers behind the number
Two assumptions carry this valuation.
The first is growth in years 2 to 5: 15% a year. That's a little above the median toy company's 13.6%. It isn't a one-hit fad, but it isn't a start-up any more. On my numbers Pop Mart goes from 4.7% of the global toy market today to 7.0% in year 10.
The second is the target margin: 15%. The 2025 margin was a surge margin. I expect it to wear down toward a well-run toy company, above the industry's 7% to 11%, below Pop Mart's own pre-surge average of 21.6%.
| Assumption | My estimate | Alternative | Value/share |
|---|---|---|---|
| All at my estimates | RMB 182.28 | ||
| Growth, years 2–5 | 15% | 25% | RMB 266.24 |
| 0% | RMB 106.43 | ||
| Target margin | 15% | 25% | RMB 267.22 |
| 7.4% | RMB 117.73 |
The valuation
The 10 years of cash flows are worth RMB 99.3 billion today, the terminal value RMB 132.4 billion, 57% of the total. Less leases and minorities, plus RMB 14.2 billion of cash, over 1,331.7 million shares.
My estimate is RMB 182.28 a share, against a price of RMB 124.04, or HK$145.50. The market is paying about 68% of my estimate.
The full-length video walks through every assumption, the fad risk, and more.
| Files Subscribe to download |
|---|
| Valuation model The FCFF model behind the estimate — every input, every year, and the value it produces. XLSX · 15 KB |
| Sensitivity table Value per share across two assumptions — revenues in year 10 and target pre-tax operating margin. XLSX · 44 KB |
| Market sizes The total addressable market size estimates for single- or multi-business companies — TAM size, CAGR, implied market share, sources, caveats, etc. XLSX · 54 KB |
| Pop Mart financial statements Income statement, balance sheet and cash flow as reported in Pop Mart's annual and interim reports, with the filing each figure comes from. XLSX · 23 KB |
| Toy industry comparison Revenue, growth, margins and returns for Pop Mart and 24 toy and collectibles companies, as reported and converted to US dollars at the 15 October 2026 spot rate, with sources. XLSX · 33 KB |
Sensitivity
Estimated value per share in CNY, across the two assumptions that move it most. Rows are revenue in year 10 (RMB bn); columns are target pre-tax operating margin (%). Shaded cells clear the CNY 124.04 price at publication.
My own case is highlighted — CNY 174. Every row here grows revenue at a single constant rate to its year-ten figure, so it does not land exactly on my CNY 182.28 estimate.
| Revenue in year 10 (RMB bn) | Target pre-tax operating margin (%) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 30 | 40 | 50 | |
| 74.9 | 108 | 138 | 168 | 197 | 227 | 286 | 346 |
| 90.9 | 121 | 156 | 192 | 228 | 263 | 334 | 406 |
| 106.9 | 133 | 174 | 216 | 257 | 299 | 382 | 465 |
| 123 | 145 | 192 | 239 | 287 | 334 | 429 | 524 |
| 139 | 156 | 209 | 263 | 316 | 369 | 476 | 582 |
| 171.1 | 179 | 244 | 309 | 373 | 438 | 568 | 698 |
| 208.5 | 204 | 283 | 361 | 440 | 518 | 675 | 832 |
Disclosure
- Position
- As at 15 October 2026, I do not own shares in Pop Mart. This covers shares held by people closely associated with me. It is a snapshot: if it changes, it changes in a new valuation, never by editing this one. I hold no position, long or short, exceeding 0.5% of Pop Mart's issued share capital.
- Author
- Lucian Mesaroș, independent equity analyst, sole author of this publication, publishing in a personal capacity as an individual. I am not authorised or supervised by the ASF or by any other financial supervisory authority, I am not an investment firm, and I do not provide investment advice.
- Valuation date
- 15 October 2026. First published 18 October 2026.
- Market price used.
- CNY 124.04 — HKEX close, 15 October 2026 (HK$145.50) on HKEX, 15 October 2026. The percentage difference on this page compares my estimate to that price on that date, and is not updated afterwards.
- What the number is
- CNY 182.28/share is my estimate of intrinsic value, produced by a discounted cash flow (FCFF) model. It is a forecast and an opinion, not a fact, not a price target I undertake to defend, and not a prediction of where the share price will go. A Damodaran free-cash-flow-to-the-firm discounted cash flow, in Chinese yuan. Revenue is forecast for 10 years and grown to the risk-free rate, the operating margin converges to a long-run target, reinvestment is set by a sales-to-capital ratio, and the cash flows are discounted at the cost of capital, with a terminal value in which the return on capital equals the cost of capital. The equity risk premium is weighted by where Pop Mart earns its revenue, and lease liabilities are counted as debt. The full framework is at Methodology.
- Key assumptions
- Revenue grows 10% in year 1 and 15% a year in years 2–5, then fades to the risk-free rate of 1.09% by year 10 · Operating margin of 43.5% in year 1, falling in a straight line to a 15% target by year 10 · Sales to capital of 3.1 for years 1–5 and 2.7 for years 6–10 · Effective tax rate of 23.9%, moving to the 25% marginal rate · Cost of capital of 5.84% for years 1–5, moving to 5.29% by year 10 · Return on capital after year 10 equal to the cost of capital, 5.29% · Base year is the last 12 months to 30 June 2026, with leases as the only debt and term deposits counted as cash
- How wrong this can be
- Valuations are sensitive to assumptions I chose — the sensitivity table above shows what the estimate becomes when the two that matter most turn out differently. A small change moves the estimate materially. I can be, and have been, wrong.
- Time horizon
- At least 1 year, and normally far longer. I have no view on what the share price does over the coming weeks or months, and nothing here is a short-term call. Separately, this document stands until I next value Pop Mart — see What I've Published.
- Updates
- I revalue a company when it publishes annual results, or when something material changes. There is no guaranteed schedule, and no undertaking to update this page.
- Conflicts of interest
- I have no agreement of any kind with Pop Mart or with anyone connected to it, I have not been paid by anyone to produce this valuation, no one asked me to write it except through the public request page, no draft was shown to the company, and I am not a market maker, liquidity provider or adviser to it.
- Previous valuations of Pop Mart
- None in the last 12 months.
- Sources
- Pop Mart International Group Limited, Interim Report 2026 · Pop Mart International Group Limited, Annual Report 2025 · Toy industry peers' reported results, converted to US dollars at the 15 October 2026 spot rate · market-data.xlsx, the market-size estimates published with this valuation All figures are as reported by the company unless I say otherwise.
- Everything I have published in the last 12 months:
- What I've Published