Blucc, who turned losses into profits, struggles to fulfill its Lego dream with 9.9 yuan sales.
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As the leading player in China's character-based building toy market, Blueco achieved a significant increase in book profits over the past year.
In 2025, Blueco achieved an operating revenue of 2.913 billion yuan, up 30.0% year-on-year; annual profit reached 634 million yuan, turning losses into huge gains compared to the previous year.
However, the actual quality behind this "turnaround" still shows a notable gap between market expectations for its "Chinese LEGO" status.
In 2024, the company lost nearly 400 million yuan, mainly due to fair value changes of convertible, redeemable preferred shares prior to listing and one-off listing expenses.
With a successful listing in 2025, such non-cash gains and losses no longer occur. Excluding this factor, adjusted annual profit, which better reflects actual operating conditions, increased by 15.5% year-on-year, significantly lower than the 30% revenue growth rate.
A key reason lies in the decline in gross margins brought about by product structure adjustments.
In 2025, the company’s gross margin dropped from 52.6% to 46.8%, a decrease of nearly 6 percentage points.
During this period, Blueco heavily promoted extreme value-for-money products, with the 9.9 yuan retail series contributing 541 million yuan in revenue and selling 122 million units, accounting for 47.8% of total sales.
This low-price expansion is more like a defensive measure: nowadays, in the adult and trendy toy field, Pop Mart continues to acquire high-margin customers with original IP; on the comprehensive retail side, TOP TOY occupies mindshare with its "Chinese building blocks" identity; additionally, niche players like Rolife are diverting consumer demand in the model and aesthetic building segment.
The competitive landscape is not yet settled, and Blueco’s “Chinese LEGO” label remains prominent in the capital market.
However, if we dissect the fundamental logic of the business model, Blueco’s path is actually very different from LEGO.
The first major difference is the production model.
LEGO, relying on its own global factories and high-precision mold assets, has built a highly vertically integrated supply chain system.
Its mold manufacturing precision is strictly controlled within 5 microns, ensuring that bricks produced decades ago can still seamlessly connect with today’s products.
Reportedly, LEGO never outsources mold development and maintenance, and all scrapped molds are cast into the factory foundations, fundamentally preventing design and technology leakage.
In comparison, Blueco still mainly adopts a "light asset" outsourced production model, collaborating with six third-party OEM manufacturers for manufacturing. According to its plan, its first own factory is expected to be completed and operational by the end of 2026.
Secondly, there is a significant difference in the IP model.
LEGO’s core strength lies in its deep development capabilities for original series and top movie IPs. Blueco, on the other hand, shows a more apparent "IP commercialization platform" attribute, with its growth heavily reliant on external licensed IPs.
In 2025, the four series—Transformers, Ultraman, Kamen Rider, and Heroes Infinite—contributed the vast majority of its revenue. However, the IP matrix is becoming more balanced, with Transformers series achieving revenue of 951 million yuan, surpassing Ultraman for the first time as the top IP.
The self-owned IP “Heroes Infinite” contributed 264 million yuan, but licensed IP sales still accounted for as much as 88.5%.
While this model allows the company to quickly acquire customers through mature IPs, it also exposes it to systemic risks such as license expiration, rising renewal costs, and the lack of exclusivity clauses.
International expansion is a key element for Blueco to break through growth ceilings.
In 2025, its overseas revenue reached 319 million yuan, a whopping 396.6% increase year-on-year, with the US and Indonesia being the main increment markets.
But Blueco’s current globalization is more of a "channel expansion"—namely, distribution through international retailers such as Amazon, Walmart, and Target—without yet establishing a strong global proprietary content community or direct-to-consumer brand awareness.
Currently, the share of revenue from consumers aged 16 and over has risen to 16.7%, showing some sign of breaking out of the traditional demographic circle.
But to rival global toy giants, Blueco must still identify a path beyond mere "Chinese cost-performance manufacturing," focusing on the vitality of its own IP, cost reduction and efficiency improvement in self-operated factories, and brand recognition as it globalizes.
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