Recently, at the Yongle 2025 Spring Auction, a mint-colored LABUBU marked as the first generation of collectibles was sold for 1.08 million yuan (RMB, the same below). From China to the world, LABUBU has set off a collection storm in the trendy toy circle: stores in many places around the world have queued up all night, European and American celebrities have "shown off" related pendants and plush dolls, TikTok has swept hundreds of millions of traffic, and was awarded the title of "Magical Thailand Experience Officer" by the Thai government. This member of the THE MONSTERS elf group under Pop Mart - LABUBU with 9 fangs exposed and a furry body, has become the "top stream" of Chinese trendy toy IP going overseas.

By the end of 2024, Pop Mart International Group has more than 550 directly-operated stores, more than 2,000 stores and e-commerce channels in more than 30 countries, with overseas and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan revenues reaching 5.07 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 375.2%; in the first quarter of 2025, its overseas revenue increased by nearly 500% year-on-year. From product exports to cultural exports, the reason behind LABUBU's global popularity is not only a breakthrough in the development of China's trendy toy industry, but also the recognition of Chinese trendy toy IPs by global consumers. With its complete industrial chain and strong artistic creativity, China's manufacturing industry has created one "explosive" trendy toy IP after another.

Behind this wave of trendy toys, Dongguan, the "China's Trendy Toy Capital", is everywhere. As early as 2020, Dongguan had more than 30 OEM factories and cooperative enterprises supplying related trendy toy brands, jointly supporting sales of 2.5 billion yuan. As the saying goes, "Look to China for toys in the world, and look to Dongguan for toys in China." Currently, a quarter of the world's animation derivatives are manufactured in Dongguan, and nearly 85% of China's trendy toys are also produced in Dongguan. With its excellent "manufacturing genes" and complete supporting services for the entire industry chain, Dongguan has successfully upgraded from OEM in the low- and medium-value chains to the high-value chain trendy toy field. Dongguan now has more than 4,000 toy manufacturers and nearly 1,500 upstream and downstream supporting enterprises, and has become the country's largest toy export base.

The "China Trendy Toy and Animation Industry Development Report (2024)" released by the Institute of Finance and Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the China Animation Society predicts that the market size of China's trendy toy industry will maintain rapid growth and reach 110.1 billion yuan in 2026.

In recent years, Dongguan has rapidly expanded its industrial scale and continued to move towards independent innovation, brand operation, and channel development by relying on its advantages such as strong industrial foundation, complete industrial chain supporting facilities, perfect technical processes, excellent product quality, and high-end precision manufacturing level. From January to August 2024, Dongguan's trendy toy-related output value was 11.153 billion yuan, and the number of enterprises above the scale limit was 112.

Dongguan's toy manufacturing industry started in the early days of reform and opening up. When the toy production reached its peak, it accounted for 30% of the global production and 50% of Guangdong's total toy production, becoming one of Dongguan's eight pillar industries in the early days.

Today, relying on a strong upstream and downstream industrial chain and supply chain network, Dongguan covers the key links of trendy toys from design to pre-production proofing, 3D modeling, materials, coloring, painting, etc., and key materials such as related mold accessories can all be produced.

This year, many Dongguan trendy toy companies took over the "overwhelming wealth" of "Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King" with their efficient production capacity. Nezha series peripheral products manufactured in Dongguan, such as acrylic color paper, badge blind bags and plot film cards, are in short supply.

Wogongchang Culture (Dongguan) Co., Ltd., which is authorized to produce the "Pai Pai Sit Mini Series" plastic toys around "Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King", delivered the first batch of 10,000 sets and 300,000 products before the Spring Festival, and then received new orders worth over 100 million yuan. Sun Wenke, the company's president, said that the revenue from this business alone has exceeded the company's total output value for the whole of last year.

Currently, Dongguan's trendy toy industry is accelerating the application of AI technology. Dongguan AI Research Institute restores the craftsmanship of old masters through digital modeling, shortening the training cycle for new employees by 70%, and reducing the mold development time from 50 days to 10 days. Guangdong Weiss Trendy Toy Intelligent Manufacturing Co., Ltd.'s newly built smart factory introduces intelligent manufacturing technology to increase production capacity to 5 to 10 times the current level.

Dongguan's local toy companies have seized the age characteristics, focus and interest of young people, independently designed and developed original IP, and sought breakthroughs in industrial upgrading. Many companies have explored new paths in providing integrated package services of design, production, installation and maintenance, achieved good social and economic benefits, and realized rapid expansion from trendy toy OEM production to trendy toy R&D design, original IP development and operation, channel marketing and other links.

Pincool, a brand under Dongguan Weishi Cultural Technology Co., Ltd., has deeply explored traditional culture and created original IP, and has successively launched 3D metal stereo puzzle trendy toys with intangible cultural heritage themes such as "Awakening Lion", "Thousand Corners Lantern" and "Ten Miles of Red Makeup". At present, its products cover more than 100 countries and regions around the world, and its annual turnover has maintained an annual growth of about 25%.

In recent years, Dongguan has issued a series of policy documents such as "Several Measures for Accelerating the Development of the Trendy Toy Industry in Dongguan (Trial)", promoting the development of the trendy toy industry from multiple dimensions such as strengthening the development and protection of original trendy toy IP and improving original design capabilities. At the same time, Dongguan City promotes the integrated development of "trendy play + intangible cultural heritage", "trendy play + tourism", "trendy play + sports", "trendy play + city", etc., and promotes Dongguan to become the "trendy play capital".