Pop Mart to Open Seven UK Labubu Stores After Starmer's China Visit

Pop Mart locked in seven Labubu store openings across Britain, including a flagship on Oxford Street in London's West End, following Prime Minister Keir Starmer's three-day visit to Beijing — the first trip to China by a UK prime minister in eight years.

The Chinese toy maker confirmed locations in Cardiff and Birmingham alongside the Oxford Street flagship, with the remaining four UK sites yet to be publicly named. London will also serve as Pop Mart's European regional headquarters. Grant Wang, the company's founder and chief executive, said: "London stands at the heart of the global creative ecosystem, and we are thrilled to plant our European roots here." Pop Mart expects the UK rollout to create 150 new jobs, with a further 20 stores planned across Europe in 2026.

The announcement landed as part of a wider package of trade and investment deals that Starmer's office claims is worth an estimated £2.2bn in UK export deals, alongside market access valued at £2.3bn over five years. The package includes a cut in tariffs on Scottish whisky exports to China, estimated to be worth £250m to the UK economy over five years. Chinese energy storage firm HiTHIUM committed to invest £200m in Britain, adding 300 jobs, and life sciences group Asymchem pledged to expand its UK operations and create a further 150 positions.

For collectors who have been watching Pop Mart operate primarily through its Carnaby Street location and a handful of pop-ups, seven permanent stores represents a serious infrastructure shift. Labubu's spiky-toothed grin and pointy ears have made the dolls a genuine phenomenon; fans have queued for hours to get them, and celebrity sightings of the figures on the arms of Rihanna, Dua Lipa, and Kim Kardashian accelerated the frenzy. The "ugly-cute" aesthetic is either the whole point or completely inexplicable depending on who you ask, but the secondary market does not lie.

Pop Mart's westward push fits a broader pattern among Chinese consumer brands. The company sits alongside fashion retailer Urban Revivo and coffee chain Luckin in a cohort of Chinese consumer-facing businesses expanding overseas to offset weaker domestic demand tied to a prolonged property crisis and wage security concerns.

The diplomatic backdrop to the deal has not been without friction. Critics argued that Starmer's visit prioritised trade over China's human rights record and national security implications for the UK. A labour group separately claimed that Labubu's manufacturer exploited workers, and UK border data reported by Reuters showed Labubu dolls accounted for 90% of fake toys seized at the border — a counterfeit problem that will only intensify with seven new official retail touchpoints now confirmed.

China's state news agency Xinhua framed the Labubu surge differently, saying the doll "shows the appeal of Chinese creativity, quality and culture in a language the world can understand." Seven Oxford Street-adjacent storefronts will give that argument a very concrete test.