Sunny Sundi, selling trendy toys for 8.8 yuan, struggles to tell the story of a "budget Pop Mart."

The blockbuster release of "Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child" during the 2025 Chinese New Year has drawn attention to a wave of IP derivative product companies, but the only one truly riding the momentum into the capital market seems to be Sunny Sundi.

As a long-term foreign trade supplier of toys for international food companies, this company’s revenue was 107 million yuan in 2023 and 245 million yuan in 2024.

By the first three quarters of 2025, Sunny Sundi’s IP toy product sales reached nearly 60 million units, with revenue hitting 386 million yuan—a growth rate of 134.7%, showing explosive growth.

Among these, only the top domestic trendy IP derivatives such as "Nezha 2" contributed about 196 million yuan, accounting for 50.8% of total revenue, supporting half of the company's business.

Strong growth has attracted capital attention.

In September 2025, Hillhouse Capital invested 235 million yuan, raising the post-investment valuation of the company to 3.4 billion yuan.

In December of the same year, Aurora Management injected another approximately 48.58 million yuan, raising the valuation to 4 billion yuan—80 times its 2019 valuation.

"Official and affordable" is currently Sunny Sundi’s most prominent label.

While Pop Mart’s blind box prices have gradually risen from 69 yuan to 79 yuan, Sunny Sundi still insists on letting consumers “buy a whole set for 69 yuan.”

As a result, the market compares the two, hoping Sunny Sundi can leverage supply chain efficiency and channel coverage to tell a large-scale story of “8.8 yuan official trendy toys.”

However, compared to major players in the trendy toy industry, Sunny Sundi appears to lack strength. It lacks exclusive proprietary IPs and the deep industry capital backing needed to pave the way.

To firmly establish itself as the “affordable Pop Mart,” it must find a truly sustainable competitive fulcrum in the consumer market.

Riding the "Nezha" Wave

Sunny Sundi’s origin is a typical story of Chinese manufacturing.

Founder Yang Jie entered the business early, making promotional toys for food brands and served clients like Danone and Nestlé. After settling the company in Xiangtan, Hunan in 2015, manufacturing remained the core of its business.

The real turning point came after 2020. Facing foreign trade pressure, the company decisively shifted to the emerging domestic IP-licensed toy market, starting to supply to Bright Dairy, Bestore, Kayou, and other companies.

This transformation allowed Sunny Sundi to simultaneously seize two opportunities: the maturing domestic IP licensing industry and the surge in public enthusiasm for IP consumption.

The explosive popularity of "Nezha 2" further accelerated its trajectory.

In October 2024, learning that the film was finalized for release, Sunny Sundi quickly contacted the producer and secured exclusive licensing within two weeks.

The company simultaneously arranged offline distribution, collaborating with Wancheng Group to stock goods in "Haoxianglai" stores; online, it formed a 20-person livestreaming team to sell the merchandise on Douyin around the clock.

“Nezha’s popularity exceeded our expectations. The more than 80,000 blind boxes we released in advance sold out within three days of the film’s release," recalled board assistant Yang Zhenlin.

By the sixth day of the lunar new year, the company's production lines were running at full capacity, with 60% of production in its five major bases shifted to Nezha products, and daily output increasing from 200,000 to 500,000 units.

With quick reactions and capacity guarantee, Sunny Sundi became the first company to launch official "Nezha 2" figurines, securing a critical sales window.

Nezha IP fans recall that in the first month after the film’s release, aside from trading cards, Sunny Sundi’s figurines were the most commonly seen official merchandise on the market.

Financially, Sunny Sundi’s focus on consumer business is showing results.

In 2023, its "IP toys+" model (bundling toys with food and drinks) accounted for 72% of revenue.

By 2024, "pure IP toy products" and "IP toys+" each contributed about half of the revenue.

And by the first nine months of 2025, IP toy product revenue had jumped to 78.3%—becoming the absolute main force.

This product structure optimization directly boosted overall profitability.

In the first three quarters of 2025, Sunny Sundi’s gross margin rose to 35.3%, up 20.6 percentage points year-on-year; net profit turned positive, reaching a margin of 13.4%.

Having tasted the sweetness of a blockbuster, Sunny Sundi is seeking to turn the “Nezha dividend” into a long-term growth engine, expanding its IP portfolio rapidly.

The company's IP licensing expenses jumped from 6.481 million yuan in 2023 to 50.768 million yuan in the first three quarters of 2025, with its proportion of sales costs surging from 7.3% to 20.3%.

By early 2026, the company was working with more than 20 IPs across categories including trendy domestic brands, sports, anime, and games, having delivered 217 product SKUs.

Even greater investment is yet to come.

On the balance sheet, accrued IP licensing payable under "other payables" kept rising, from 11.978 million yuan in 2023 to 26.844 million yuan in the third quarter of 2025.

This is essentially “IP credit” for contracted but unpaid licensing fees, indicating Sunny Sundi will face continuous licensing expenses going forward.

The Road to Affordable Trendy Toys Is Long and Difficult

Sunny Sundi interprets its own advantage in its prospectus as offering affordable official products to help IP holders open up broader lower-tier markets and reclaim shares lost to counterfeits.

As a company transformed from manufacturing value chains, Sunny Sundi is inherently capable of mass production and cost dilution.

To support its affordable model, Sunny Sundi has built a "dark factory," relying on world-leading fully automated lines running 24/7, ensuring scalable daily output above 1 million units.

Some consumer-sector investors have pointed out to Xinfeng, however, that the core of this model is still essentially B2B thinking. In China’s trendy toy market, production advantages are hard to become a competitive barrier; what really determines end sales is the continuous appeal of the IP and channel depth.

For example, Pop Mart built a brand moat through self-owned IPs and direct retail channels, while Kayou tied itself closely to major IPs and created an immense distribution network.

Other players also have industry capital providing key resources in the background.

In the “food toy” segment, Jintian Animation is supported by Ultraman IP agent Shengchuanghua; collectible card brand Suplay received investment from miHoYo; 52TOYS got Wanda investment before its IPO; while TOP TOY is backed by Miniso, the “king of stores,” with a natural channel network.

However, experienced industry professionals told Xinfeng that Sunny Sundi’s strategy diverges from mainstream trendy toy logic, and more closely resembles the “IP-ified FMCG” model.

“If it can maintain its low price edge and choose the right circulation channels, it could indeed carve out a differentiated survival and development space,” said one veteran in the industry.

At present, Sunny Sundi’s control over IPs, channel layout, and capital support is insufficient.

In channels, its products cover more than 32,000 retail outlets, but about two-thirds are concentrated in a single major snack discount chain—a clearly one-sided structure.

On the IP side, its current performance is still highly dependent on the two blockbuster hits of 2025.

On Douyin and Tmall flagship stores, products from "Nezha 2" and "Monster from Langlang Mountain" remain the main sales drivers: the former’s figurines have exceeded 900,000 units sold, with an estimated sales of 70 million yuan; the latter’s blind box figurines have sold 150,000 units.

These two IPs not only have weak foundations, but contracts with Sunny Sundi are only for a year.

The film industry itself is highly volatile, and the odds of preemptively betting on and successfully acquiring a national-level hit like "Nezha 2" are extremely low; hits like "Monster from Langlang Mountain" are also rare strokes of luck.

The low price strategy further limits product complexity and creative potential, making it hard to build product depth and player stickiness like brands such as 52TOYS, which employ multi-category matrices—static, articulated, transformable mecha, etc.

Therefore, the first-mover advantage and influence Sunny Sundi built with "Nezha 2" are not solid in the low-barrier, rapidly imitated affordable toy market.

In the long run, sticking to the mass-market affordable strategy means it cannot follow a “small but beautiful” selective approach, but must continuously chase popular IPs, bear high licensing fees, and compete directly with many other similarly licensed rivals.

Beyond the lower-tier market, Sunny Sundi is also seeking overseas opportunities, having obtained licensing for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in over 60 countries and regions, showing its global ambitions.

Sunny Sundi’s inventory has risen sharply from 33.5 million yuan at the end of 2023 to 126 million yuan by the end of September 2025—a 276% increase.

Before the Nezha dividend fades, whether Sunny Sundi can build a sustainable competitive moat remains an unsolved question.

Risk Warning and DisclaimerThere are risks in the market; investment should be cautious. This article does not constitute personal investment advice, nor does it consider the specific investment objectives, financial situation, or needs of individual users. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions herein are appropriate for their own circumstances. Any investment decisions made based on this article are at the user’s own risk.