Pop Mart: how millennial entrepreneur Wang Ning became a billionaire selling US$9 mystery Molly dolls from vending machines across China
- His 200 stores and 1,000 ‘roboshops’ – selling collectible dolls like Molly, designed by Hong Kong artist Kenny Wong – have made Wang worth US$3.2 billion
- On Singles' Day 2019 the company made sales worth US$22 million on Tmall alone – more than those by brands such as Disney and Lego
The latest Chinese entrepreneur to join the three-comma club is 33-year-old Wang Ning. The newly minted billionaire is the founder and chairman of Pop Mart, the largest toy enterprise in China. Spanning 21 countries with more than 200 stores and over 1,000 vending machines – called “roboshops” – the decade-old company’s signature products are trendy figurines packaged in mystery boxes, priced around US$9 each.
Wang owns a majority stake in his Beijing-based firm through holding companies and is now worth US$3.2 billion following his company’s Hong Kong IPO in December last year.
Born in Henan province, Wang graduated with an advertising degree from Zhengzhou University in 2009. After spending a year working in Sina Corporation, the digital media company that owns Weibo, Wang decided he wanted to found his own business.
During a trip to Hong Kong, he was inspired by a retail chain that sold a wide assortment of on-trend products and decided to bring the same concept to mainland China.
In 2010, Wang opened the first Pop Mart store in Beijing’s Zhongguancun, a technology hub that is often referred to as China’s Silicon Valley. The store sold many different types of products, and Wang quickly found himself dealing with myriad issues such as inventory management, staffing and customer service.
In 2014, he enrolled at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management and met a cohort of like-minded classmates – some of whom later joined Pop Mart’s management team.