If there's a Pop Mart nearby, the store efficiency of Miniso's flagship store must surpass it - this is Ye Guofu's latest directive. "If they do 3 million yuan a month, we must do 3 million yuan; if they do 2 million yuan, we must do 2 million yuan," Ye Guofu said at Miniso's 2026 mid-year earnings conference.
He cited the example of the Harbin Bailian store, where two stores are about 10 meters apart, and currently, Miniso's daily average sales have exceeded those of Pop Mart.
But this is not just a competition about store sales. What Ye Guofu truly wants to achieve may be a business that excites him more than just selling daily necessities.
In recent years, Miniso has relied on international licensed IPs such as Disney, Sanrio, and Marvel, filling its lifestyle stores with IP products, with trendy toys making up only a small part of the business. However, it is now making its main brand more like a trendy toy company - now when you walk into a Miniso store, you will find that the proportion of trendy toys has increased, and its own IP YOYO appears at store entrances and mall atriums to continuously build momentum.
YOYO mascot (photo taken by Jieemian News's Ya Hanxiang)
Photo: The Interface News Lu Yibei
This is the most obvious strategic change for Miniso over the past year.
Ye Guofu said in January that the company was cooperating with nearly 180 international authorized IPs at the time, but had only 16 self-created original IPs, 15 of which were developed in 2025. "In the past, we didn't think about creating our own IPs, and we thought working with international IPs was good enough, but in 2025, we woke up and realized we need to have our own IPs," Ye Guofu said.
Infographic: Interface News Lu Yibei
It's hard to say Ye Guofu's transformation wasn't spurred by LABUBU's global breakout last year.
In 2025, Pop Mart's revenue increased by 184.7% year-over-year to 37.120 billion yuan, with self-developed product revenue accounting for 99.1%. In August of that year, Ye Guofu said at a performance meeting that Pop Mart's good performance shows that "the first consumers are paying, and the second is the capital market".
YOYO was the first character to be rapidly magnified after this turn.
In June 2025, Miniso launched the first series of YOYO, created by artist Wang Yongquan, with a similar appearance to the IPs under Pop Mart, featuring a rounded face with no specific expression. However, this design setting is easier for different consumers to understand and can be extended to more styles, such as plush keychains and other figurines.
Miniso is leveraging its existing stores, supply chain, and membership system for YOYO.
On August 31, Interface News visited MINISO LAND, the largest MINISO theme park store in Shenzhen. Inside the three-story store, YOYO and CHOUCHOU were placed at the entrance and main traffic areas, each with large installations and independent display areas; Disney, Marvel, and Chiikawa licensed IPs were distributed in other themed areas.
In addition, MINISO also held YOYO birthday-themed pop-up events in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, launching over 30 new products, including a global limited edition of 500 resin figurines and 10 YOYO-shaped ice cream products. At MINISO LAND, YOYO created a sense of scarcity through large installations, limited-edition releases, and member-exclusive purchases.
According to further information obtained by Interface News, YOYO has entered 53 countries and regions worldwide within a year of its launch. In the first half of 2026, related revenue approached 500 million yuan, with single-month sales exceeding 100 million yuan in both June and July. The group's initial goal of breaking 1 billion yuan in self-owned IP sales has also been completed ahead of schedule by the end of July.
In fact, this is also a set of logic that Pop Mart has repeatedly verified over the past few years.
For trendy toy companies, the value of an IP does not just come from a single blind box or plush toy, but from whether it can keep consumers continuously engaged with the character. For example, Pop Mart not only puts its IPs on more products, but also sets up city-themed parks and holds LABUBU or CRYBABY exhibitions globally. By constantly creating "events" for its IPs, the company allows characters to reappear in front of consumers at different times, fostering a habit of continuous collecting and pursuing new products.
Now, Miniso is replicating one of its most easily standardized parts. For example, it recently also launched YOYO-themed ice cream carts in first-tier cities, similar to Pop Mart's Starry People theme. YOYO set up a pop-up exhibition at Shanghai IAPM during this summer, while LABUBU was putting on a similar "show" at Shanghai Xintiandi, just outside a subway station.
Image source of YOYO-themed refrigerated truck: Weibo @Miniso
Image of the Starry Sky-themed ice cream truck, source: Weibo @POPMART
To achieve popularization, Miniso's advantages lie in its vast network of stores, mature supply chain, and high-frequency new product development capabilities.
However, this is still different from the truly mature IP operations of Pop Mart, which, aside from the luck of an IP becoming a hit, has spent nearly a decade building around the characters themselves, cultivating collectibles and fan relationships, and then continuously expanding into new products and scenarios, an investment that Miniso has only just begun to make.
Financial data also reflects this. In the first half of 2026, THE MONSTERS, a subsidiary of Pop Mart, generated revenue of 4.454 billion yuan, which, despite a 7.5% year-over-year decline, is still nearly 9 times that of YOYO. During the same period, the revenue of Starry People was approximately 2.65 billion yuan, exceeding YOYO's by more than 5 times.
Chart production: Interface News Yaqian Xiang
Furthermore, a more direct issue is that as Miniso becomes increasingly trendy, the positioning of TOP TOY, another brand under the group, has become awkward.
TOP TOY was established in 2020, initially tasked with helping MINISO enter the trendy toy market and compete with Pop Mart. It sells blind boxes, figurines, assembly models, and plush toys, while operating its own IP, licensed IP, and third-party brand IP. Now, stores like MINISO LAND and MINISO SPACE are also selling blind boxes and plush toys, with IP products accounting for as much as 100% of sales in some store types.
As of the end of June, the Miniso brand had 8,309 global stores, with 365 being TOP TOY stores. In the first half of the year, TOP TOY's revenue increased by 32.7% year-over-year to 985 million yuan, maintaining growth. If TOP TOY continues to operate as a trendy toy collection store, it will need to differentiate itself from Miniso's increasingly high-IP-density large stores; if it further strengthens its own IP, it will overlap with the direction that the main brand is currently promoting.
TOP TOY is currently in the preparation stage for its initial public offering, and its positioning and future direction will also be factors in how the capital market evaluates its valuation.
At its core, the key to determining whether Miniso can become a trendy and playful brand lies in whether YOYO can be replicated.
In fact, this is a problem that all trendy toy brands are facing. Even Pop Mart, which has established a relatively complete IP incubation system, has not proven that a trendy toy IP can be popular for a long time. In the first half of 2026, THE MONSTERS, which was once driven by LABUBU to achieve rapid growth, saw its revenue decrease by 7.5% year-over-year to 4.454 billion yuan, while new IPs such as Starry People are becoming new sources of growth.
As consumer aesthetics and popular trends constantly change, leading IPs experience fluctuations, which is the dilemma that Pop Mart is currently facing, and an even more direct challenge for Miniso, which has burst onto the scene.
In addition to YOYO, Ye Guofu is also incubating CHOUCHOU using the same approach. This IP debuted at MINISO LAND in Chengdu's eastern suburbs, with Miniso setting up a dedicated theme area for it and creating buzz through limited-edition stores, concentrated launches, and celebrity collaborations. Ye Guofu predicts that CHOUCHOU also has the potential to grow into an IP with annual sales exceeding 1 billion yuan.
Miniso's advantage may lie in the commercialization efficiency that follows after an IP takes off.
Relying on the supply chain and product development capabilities accumulated from operating Miniso in the past, it can quickly expand YOYO or other IPs into more categories such as stationery, home goods, electronic accessories, and even food, and then rapidly roll them out through global stores - which is precisely the weakness of Pop Mart and Wang Ning.