On March 28, the first stock of the blind box Bubble Mart announced its 2021 annual financial report. From the full year's data, in 2021, Bubble Mart achieved revenue of about 4.491 billion yuan, an increase of 78.7% year-on-year; adjusted net profit was 1.002 billion yuan, an increase of 69.6% year-on-year. As of 2021, Bubble Mart has registered 19.58 million members, 2.6 times that of last year. In addition, in 2021, members contributed 92.2% of sales, and the member repurchase rate was 56.5%.
After the earnings report, Bubble Mart shares rose nearly 7% from the morning break and immediately turned down. As of the close of trading on March 28, Bubble Mart shares fell 6.06% to close at HK$31 per share. As of press time, the share price is HK$32.4 per share, with a total market capitalization of HK$45.4 billion, compared with the highest price of HK$107.34 per share in early 2021, the total market value has shrunk by 100 billion.
Since the second half of 2021, due to after-sales problems and the impact of blind box supervision, the market has not stopped questioning Bubble Mart's blind box business model. Although Wang Ning, the founder of Bubble Mart, has always wanted to take off the "blind box" label for the company, such as the revenue contributed by the blind box that is not listed separately in the 2020 annual report, the word "blind box" does not even appear in the 2021 annual report. However, from the perspective of the company's development path and performance contribution, Bubble Mart is indeed a company that started with a blind box and still uses the blind box as the main source of income at present.
Molly, 15, is still the most selling point, and Bubble Mart is shedding dependence
From the perspective of IP types, in 2021, Bubble Mart's revenue mainly relies on its own IP, exclusive and non-exclusive IP, external procurement and sales, etc., and its own IP contribution revenue accounts for 57.6%. Among the 7 major IPs with revenues exceeding 100 million yuan, 5 major IPs are from Bubble Mart's own IP, supporting half of the revenue, but the income distribution is more balanced.
Among them, Molly, who has turned 15, is still the most selling point, achieving revenue of about 705 million yuan in 2021, accounting for about 15.7% of total revenue, an increase of 97.6% year-on-year. The new IP in 2020 - SKULLPANDA has a revenue of 595 million yuan in 2021, the proportion of revenue soared from 1.6% in 2020 to 13.3%, and the revenue of Dimo launched in 2019 also reached 560 million yuan, becoming an IP that is on par with Molly in terms of volume, and Bubble Mart is also getting rid of "Molly dependence".
The revenue share of several exclusive IPs has declined in 2021, from 28.3% in 2020 to 17.2%. Pucky, one of the two biggest IPs in the circle, has slid its revenue share from 11.9% in 2020 to 4.1%.
At the product level, in addition to the IP-based blind box model, Bubble Mart also focuses on the collectible toy track. In 2021, Bubble Mart launched more than ten MEGA collection products. As of the end of the reporting period, the MEGA series of products achieved a total revenue of $178 million. On the earnings call, Bubble Mart management said: "The MEGA Collection will be the focus of this year's product line. This year will have several times the growth of last year, there will be more IP to launch MEGA, but also thinking about more sales methods of MEGA. ”
On the other hand, Bubble Mart began to enter the theme park, and in August last year, Beijing Bubble Mart Park Management Co., Ltd. was established, and its business scope included urban park management, amusement parks, ticketing agencies, etc. In September, Bubble Mart opened its first global concept store at Universal Studios Beijing. At the beginning of January this year, Bubble Mart reached a cooperation with Beijing Chaoyang Park to create the first offline park.
Restrain offline expansion and accelerate the development of online platforms such as Douyin
Bubble Mart channels are divided into retail stores, robot stores, online channels, wholesale channels, and others. Among them, the revenue of retail stores and robot stores totaled 2.143 billion yuan, accounting for 47.8% of the total revenue, Nandu reporter noted that in the past year, bubble mart online channels developed rapidly, the income exceeded the offline retail stores for the first time to reach 1.879 billion yuan, accounting for 41.8% of the total revenue.
In the online channel, the bubble mart box pumping machine achieved revenue of 898 million yuan, an increase of 92.6% year-on-year, as the first major shipping channel, Tmall flagship store revenue growth slowed down to 47.5%, last year's newly opened Jingdong flagship store achieved revenue of 143 million yuan, an increase of 296% year-on-year.
In terms of offline channels, Bubble Mart is mainly located in first-tier cities and new first-tier cities, of which the number of stores in first-tier cities is 113 and 84 in new first-tier cities. The revenue of retail stores in bubble mart first-tier cities reached 798 million yuan, far exceeding the new first-tier cities with 480 million yuan. In the non-first-tier market, Bubble Mart has laid out more robot stores.
However, Nandu reporter found that whether it is a retail store or a robot store, its average single store revenue in the second half of 2021 is in a state of decline. Taking the robot store as an example, its revenue in the second half of 2021 was 242 million yuan, and in the second half of the year, there were 1861 robot stores, with an average stand-alone revenue of about 130,000 yuan, while the average stand-alone revenue in the first half of the year exceeded 150,000 yuan. Industry insiders said that this may be related to the new robot stores are located in non-first-tier markets, and market education will take time.
For the expansion rate of offline stores, the management of Bubble Mart used the word "restraint" to describe. "There are no plans for large-scale expansion in 2022, and the stores that have been open for a long time will be optimized, and the number of new stores is expected to be less than in 2021; online channels will still be dominated by Tmall and JD.com, and the development of the Douyin live broadcast platform will be accelerated."
"Blind box economy strong supervision", bubble mart out to sea
In January this year, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Market Supervision took the lead in issuing the "Shanghai Blind Box Business Activities Compliance Guidelines", which put forward specific measures to regulate the blind box market. Before the 315 party, the blind box was named by CCTV because of the high quality of the blind box and the price difference; during the two sessions of the National People's Congress, the standardization of the blind box economy was also a hot topic.
The industry head hangs a "sword", as a "bellwether", Bubble Mart has also attracted considerable attention. Its management said at the earnings report that it has been communicating with the regulatory authorities and that the company has strict compliance requirements, including data retention.
In addition to the development of compliance in the domestic market, overseas markets are becoming one of the key directions for Bubble Mart to accelerate its layout. Wen Deyi, vice president of Bubble Mart and president of Bubble Mart's international business, defined 2022 as "the first year of the tide to play out of the sea", and said: "In the next 10 years, the international business will be one of the most important points of power of Bubble Mart. ”
According to the data, in 2021, the revenue of Bubble Mart's international business was 137 million yuan, an increase of 85.2% year-on-year. By the end of 2021, there will be 7 overseas stores. Wang Ning, chairman and CEO of Bubble Mart, said on the conference call that the future goal is to account for 50% of overseas revenue.
Written by: Nandu reporter Ye Lu