How many Hitcards can be stored in Yuewen’s “Granary”?
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Against the backdrop of accelerating capitalization of IP trend toys, who will become the "first card stock" remains a focus of market attention.
After the leading company CardYo submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in April, the IPO process has yet to see substantial progress.
At this time, new news emerged in the market: the collectible card brand "Hitcard," established only four years ago, is actively promoting the IPO process and is expected to overtake its competitors.
Unlike CardYo, Hitcard’s differentiation lies in its precise grasp of the increasingly strong commercialization demands of IP licensors.
As a company focusing on the adult collectible card niche, Hitcard has launched ACGN IP cards such as "The King's Avatar" and "Battle Through the Heavens," as well as derivative card series for popular TV dramas like "Joy of Life" and "Hard to Coax."
The year after its establishment, the company completed its first round of financing, subsequently attracting investments from multiple institutions with industrial and capital backgrounds, including Pop Mart, Sequoia China Seed Fund, and China Literature (Yuewen) Group.
Among Hitcard’s current shareholders, China Literature’s industrial synergy value is particularly prominent.
In October 2024, based on the successful cooperation on multiple IPs including "Joy of Life," "The King's Avatar," and "Lord of the Mysteries," Hitcard received tens of millions of yuan in funding led by China Literature Group.
With this opportunity, Hitcard further accessed China Literature’s resource pool covering over 1,000 IPs and shared its offline channel network.
The close linkage between IP licensors and downstream card manufacturers jointly tapping the capital market signals that the IP derivative product ecosystem is moving from simple licensing to deep integration across the entire industry chain.
In the future, as content IPs such as film and television accelerate monetization, the competitive landscape and value chain distribution in the downstream card market may usher in a new round of reconstruction.
No Drama Without Cards
TV drama cards may be one of Hitcard’s most recognizable market labels.
Founder Zhao Yunpeng told Xinfeng that before Hitcard entered the field, almost no one in the market systematically developed live-action TV drama cards.
At the beginning of 2024, leveraging the long-tail popularity of the hit drama "Lotus House," Hitcard launched the "Above the Jianghu" card series. The first batch of 800 boxes sold out quickly in Douyin’s live broadcast rooms, with the total series GMV exceeding 6 million yuan.
In the same year, the "Joy of Life" series set a new record with a GMV of 20 million yuan, further proving the commercialization potential of the TV drama card category.
Filling the market gap, combined with the explosive growth of Douyin channels and expanded supply chain capacity, jointly drove Hitcard’s substantial sales growth in 2024.
That year, Hitcard achieved revenue of about 400 million yuan, up more than 600% year-on-year, and expects continued revenue growth in 2025.
Currently, Hitcard has achieved 100% in-house production and sales with factories covering about 20,000 square meters. However, Zhao Yunpeng revealed to Xinfeng that the existing production capacity is unlikely to fully meet next year’s performance targets.
The relatively optimistic expectations may stem from the emerging trend in the TV industry where dramas are incomplete without cards.
Yang Tangtang, founder of Kayo Jianghu, told Xinfeng that according to his observation, at this stage, most new IP card licenses are quickly absorbed by card companies.
"The production threshold for cards is relatively low, and in recent years, companies like CardYo have opened up sales channels," Yang Tangtang said, "The industry has clear expectations for the gains from IP cardification, so all parties tend to grab the most promising IP licenses first."
Hitcard, with its deep interpretation of IP and high-quality design capabilities, stands out in the market.
Zhao Yunpeng believes that through products and market strategy, Hitcard continuously conveys a message to IP owners: "We are working together to maximize the value of your IP." This makes Hitcard the first choice for copyright holders in the adult collectible market.
China Literature has also stated, "We chose to invest in Hitcard because of its ability for premium development, scarce rapid production capacity, and online distribution capability, making it an important partner for collaboration between China Literature IP and card products."
"Among top TV drama IPs, Hitcard is already able to cover about 70% to 80% of the TV card market share," Zhao Yunpeng said.
Hitcard has now built a matrix of more than 200 IPs, covering diverse areas like secondary creation of TV, animation, online literature, games, and China-chic, launching over 10 products each month, all sold in limited quantities.
By comparison, CardYo operated about 70 IPs in 2024, and its revenue was highly concentrated, with the top five IPs contributing 86% of the total.
However, this operating model of "multiple IPs, limited releases, high-frequency launches" enhances market competitiveness but also increases the complexity of user acquisition and ongoing operations, partially sacrificing profit efficiency.
According to Zhao Yunpeng: "Others design one hundred card faces and sell them for half a year or even a year, but we might only be able to sell them for a month and have to redesign everything next month."
"Small production batches and frequent line changes may mean switching to the next product after just half an hour of printing, and our pursuit of eco-friendly materials further increases costs," Zhao Yunpeng said.
To strengthen its core competitiveness, Hitcard aims to reinforce strategic ties with industry partners through equity cooperation.
Besides China Literature, in 2024 Hitcard added Japanese gaming company Cygames, game development and IP management company Akatsuki, and major figurine manufacturer Goodsmile as shareholders, further supplementing overseas IP acquisition, operation, and channel capacities.
Hitcard stated that these partnerships provide key support for its overseas IP expansion, and expects a concentrated launch of new overseas IP products early next year.
Filling China Literature’s "Granary"
Hitcard’s rapid rise in the TV card niche is largely thanks to the increasingly strong commercialization ambitions of IP licensors.
At the beginning of 2025, China Literature elevated "IP commercialization" to a group-level strategy, accelerating the diverse release of IP value.
Hit IPs in the entertainment industry are naturally unstable.
Content such as TV and games involves large investments, unpredictable adaptation outcomes, and long development cycles, making them inherently risky. In this situation, systematic development of mature IPs is expected to be a key support for balancing performance fluctuations.
With a huge IP reserve, derivative businesses represented by "selling grains" have brought significant incremental value to China Literature.
In 2024, the total GMV of China Literature’s IP derivatives exceeded 500 million yuan, a record high, with card products alone contributing about 200 million yuan. Multiple core IPs, including "The King’s Avatar" and "Joy of Life," saw significant revenue growth.
In the first half of 2025, IP derivative business GMV reached 480 million yuan, nearly matching the total amount for the whole of last year.
This achievement was first benefited from the "timing" of concentrated hits being released.
2024 happened to be a "big IP year" for China Literature, with top works such as "Joy of Life 2," "Flight to You," and "Nightwatcher" launching one after another, jointly driving large-scale growth in copyright and derivative business revenues.
Second, credit is due to the solid industrial foundation established by the rapid development of the trend toy industry chain in recent years.
After several years of development, the market has gradually produced a group of partners with core strengths in supply chain, channel or operation, strongly supporting efficient IP monetization.
Against this backdrop, the collaborative model of linking up and down the industry chain through equity investment is becoming the industry mainstream.
According to its 2024 annual report, China Literature’s investments in unlisted entities exceeded 1 billion yuan last year.
Apart from Hitcard, this also includes investments in European and American card company Crossing Media and AI interactive companion platform Dream-making Island.
In July 2025, China Literature again completed a strategic investment in plush toy brand "Super Energetic Factory," cementing relationships with mature companies in niche fields, as it did with Hitcard, by taking about a 10% stake.
From an industry perspective, this kind of cooperation offers two-way value.
For companies like Hitcard seeking security, China Literature, with its many mature IPs, can provide content assets verified by the market with built-in fan bases, constituting a competitive advantage over purely original IPs.
Meanwhile, by proactively entering the mid- and downstream industry chain, China Literature can stabilize its revenue structure while seeking more controllable and frequent channels for IP value release.
In 2022, it launched the IP derivatives platform "Yuewen Goods," which has so far opened 8 directly operated stores, and, through key channel partners, covers over 3,000 retail terminals.
At the 2025 Creators Conference, China Literature further launched the "Global Trend Toy Co-Creation Plan," working with 100 top artists to develop IP images and foster original content, opening up full-chain capabilities from design and supply chain to global marketing for partners.
This move is not only intended to showcase its channel capability and platform value, but also to feed back and expand the core of the IP ecosystem, paving the way for high-quality internationalization of subsequent products.
However, on this "IP supertanker" setting sail at speed, whether derivative brands can continue to secure a place remains uncertain.
In Yang Tangtang’s view, the model of long-term reliance on external IP licensing is unsustainable: "Once downstream profits become considerable, how could rights holders be content with only fixed licensing fees?"
The future direction for companies like Hitcard may depend on whether, while leveraging upstream IP, they can hone core capabilities in product design, user operations, and channel management, and ultimately find an irreplaceable ecological position in an increasingly integrated IP ecosystem.
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