The Chinese manufacturer of iconic dolls, Labubu, has achieved a market value that exceeds the capitalization of leading Russian resource companies. This fact clearly illustrates the need to update approaches to the rise in value of the Russian stock market.
The market value of the Chinese company Pop Mart International, which created the viral puppets Labubu, has made an incredible leap, allowing it to overtake the capitalization of Russian energy leaders. According to the results of the bidding in Hong Kong on 22 July 2025, the capitalization of Pop Mart reached the equivalent of 3.32 trillion rubles, which exceeded the figures of PJSC «Gazprom» (3.049 trillion rubles) and PJSC «NOVATEK» (3.29 trillion rubles) at the same time. Now above Pop Mart in Russia are listed only Sberbank, «Rosneft» and LUKOIL.
Alexey Primak, an expert from the Institute of Financial and Investment Technologies, called such a comparison of capitalizations paradoxical but highly indicative. He sees this as a direct demonstration of the key problem: the urgent need to restart the entire Russian stock market’s capitalization growth. Primak emphasizes that genuine growth is brought by new ideas, initial stock offerings (IPO), fresh inflows of investments and investors' interest in innovative sectors - be it toys, IT or biotechnology, says rbc.ru.
To compete with companies like Pop Mart, transparency, protection of investors' rights, economic diversification beyond commodity exports and the active launch of new IPOs attracting digital brands and modern services are critical.
The phenomenal success of Pop Mart is directly related to the frenetic demand for collector’s monsters Labubu, which became the main trend of spring 2025 thanks to the viral челlenjama in TikTok and the support of world famous. Agiotage boosted the company’s HSE stock, which rose by almost 590% in a year. Expecting continued high demand, the management of Pop Mart predicts net profit growth for the first half of 2025 by at least 350% and revenues - by 200%, confirming the strength of new consumer trends.