A 33-year-old businessman who became rich by selling ‘8 trillion won’ toys

At the young age of 33, there is a young man who has become an asset of 50 billion yuan (about 8.5 trillion won). This is Wang Ning, the founder of Pao Pao Mater, China’s Pao Pao Mater (泡泡玛特 Pop Mart). Pao Pao Marter is the protagonist who caused the Chinese random box craze.

Wang Ning has been skilled in business since college. Videos of various campus events were made on CDs and sold. In addition, he made money by renting shelves for sales in a good place on campus, and using some of them for direct sales.

In all of these processes, Wang Ning realized that he “should be sensitive to trend changes” and that “if we can’t secure a core business model that cannot be replicated, we won’t be competitive.” This is because the video CD business has been subject to changes in trends since the spread of the Internet, and display stand rentals have been caught up in duplication and imitation.

After graduation, he got a job at the internet company, Groom. However, he was unable to suppress his dream of starting a business and left the company a year later. After leaving the company, I went to Hong Kong to meet my girlfriend and found a business item. At the time, when I went to a shopping mall in Hong Kong, a store called LOG-ON was unusually popular. Local young women loved to see and buy items that were popular at the time, such as stationery, cosmetics, and toys there.

The company inspired by this is Pao Pao Mater (泡泡玛特 Pop Mart). When I returned to Beijing, I brought together my friends who had been doing the CD business together in my previous years to set up a company.

The name Pao Pao Mart comes from the English name Pop Mart. It literally means matra selling trendy products. Paopao Mater’s founding team opened the first store in Beijing’s Zhongguancun Umeihui Shopping Center in November 2010 after preparation.

There were many difficulties in the early stages of operation. In particular, it recorded a deficit for three consecutive years between 2014 and 2016. In 2016, the deficit exceeded 20 million yuan (about 3.4 billion won).

Pao Pao Marter is famous for its random box. At first, like a general store, various figures and small items were displayed and sold. Then, the so-called jackpot broke out by combining the random box with the character product. This triggered the random box craze across China.

In fact, the random box itself is an easily duplicated item. Wang Ning himself agrees that Random Box is not original. According to Wang Ning’s explanation, Pao Pao Mater pursues a business that combines popular toys and IP. While introducing new characters, they create a prettier box to make a good impression on the product and explore ways for a more fun consumption experience. Random box is one of those methods.

Pao Pao Mater, who entered the New Sampan in January 2017, succeeded in achieving a net profit of 1.56 million yuan (263 million won) for the first time. Product sales continued to increase over the next two years, and profits in 2019 exceeded 400 million yuan. And in December of the same year, Paopao Mater, led by Wang Ning for 10 years, was listed on the Hong Kong Exchange. On this day, the stock price soared 100%, and the market cap exceeded HK$100 billion (about KRW 1.4 trillion) at one time.

The ransom of the founder Wang Ning and his wife, who owned 29.8% of the company’s stock, soared to 50 billion yuan (about 8.5 trillion won). At a young age in his early 30s, he became the second-richest man in Henan Province.

Despite Wang Ning’s success, questions about Pao Pao Mater continue to arise. Some people point out the speculative nature of the random box and criticize it as’bubble mart’ and’fraud mart’. It promotes vanity and fictitious psychology. The Chinese government has also noticed that the random box craze is not very welcome. In this regard, Wang Ning said in an interview with Tsumubang (字母榜):

“The doubts about the success of Pao Pao Marter arise from the inability to understand the changed social culture and psychology. It’s similar to what older generations can’t understand how younger generations are going crazy about random boxes and character toys today. Our job is to ensure that consumers get a sense of life and satisfaction in the process of making a purchase.”

China Lab Sung-Hyun Hong