Pop Mart’s McDonald’s China drop fuels resale frenzy, and demand

The real story in Pop Mart’s McDonald’s China drop is access. A May 20 Twinkle Twinkle launch through McDonald’s China drew lines, flooded social feeds, and pushed some of the co-branded toys to more than 30 percent above retail on the secondary market, the kind of price jump that tells collectors the first wave stayed tight.

That matters because a China-centered restaurant tie-in changes the buying math immediately. Once a release is tied to McDonald’s China, overseas buyers are pushed toward proxy buying, resellers, and whatever stock surfaces after the first rush. For Labubu collectors, the signal is familiar: when Pop Mart keeps the launch local and the supply narrow, the market starts pricing in scarcity before the toys have even settled into circulation.

Pop Mart has been leaning hard into that formula. Chief operating officer Si De said the company’s intellectual-property portfolio continues to show strong commercial vitality across global markets, and Pop Mart’s first-quarter 2026 update backed that up with China revenue up 100 percent to 105 percent year on year and online sales up 150 percent to 155 percent. The message is blunt: domestic demand is still doing the heavy lifting, and collaborations are one of the cleanest ways to keep that engine hot.

The company’s 2024 results show how much scale it already has to play with. Revenue reached RMB 13.04 billion, up 106.9 percent year on year, while profit attributable to owners rose 188.8 percent to RMB 3.13 billion. Mainland China revenue came in at RMB 7.97 billion, and overseas revenue reached RMB 5.07 billion, up 375.2 percent. In its annual report, Pop Mart said it was marking its 15th anniversary and Labubu’s 10th anniversary while continuing to expand overseas through stores, online channels, exhibitions, and artist-signing events.

That is why this Twinkle Twinkle drop lands with more weight than a one-off promo. Labubu, created by Kasing Lung in 2015 as part of The Monsters series, became the proof of concept after Lung signed an exclusive licensing deal with Pop Mart in 2019. Even though this McDonald’s China release centered on Twinkle Twinkle, collectors are watching it through the Labubu lens: if Pop Mart can still make a character drop feel scarce, the markup will keep finding its way to the market.