Which Tide Play Brands are Developing Well in 2022?

At present, China's tide play-related industry as the main business enterprises are relatively few, including A-share listed companies Bubble Mart and Kai Zhi Le International to tide play as the main business, the rest of the listed companies are or plan to carry out tide play-related business, such as Ao Fei Entertainment, Mu Bang Hi-Tech, high music shares, Yuan Long Ya Tu, Shun Net Technology, etc..

In addition, according to incomplete statistics, in 2021, the number of investments in the hip-play industry alone was as many as 31, and several hip-play companies received multiple rounds of financing within a year.

Currently, Chinese trendy toy registered enterprises are mainly located in North and East China, with Guangdong being the main registered hotspot for trendy toy enterprises. As of July 2022, listed companies within the trendy toy industry are mainly concentrated in the entire southeast coastal region, with Guangdong Province having the most listed companies.

From the tide play business accounted for the highest percentage of Bubble Mart tide play business. From the sales layout, most of the manufacturers focus on the layout of the domestic market in China, such as Bubble Mart, Mu Bang Hi-Tech, Gao Le shares and Huali Technology, etc.; while some companies focus on the layout of the overseas market, such as Aofei Entertainment, Golden Fortune Laser, Genesis, Deyi Wenchuang, Shifeng Culture, etc.

From the company's business layout, some companies seize the recent popular concept of meta-universe and take the lead in laying out NFT digital collections, such as Shunnet Technology, Golden Fortune Laser, Genesis, Deyi Wenchuang and Meisheng Culture. Bubble Mart, on the other hand, has made efforts to high-end collectible toys. Companies such as AoFei Entertainment, MuBang Hi-Tech and Clorox continue to lay out the traditional tide play market with blind boxes as the main focus.

From the perspective of online and offline layout, Bubble Mart, AoFei Entertainment and Famous Online layout is more complete. Their online layout covers the Amoy system platform, Internet e-commerce platform, Jitterbug and Little Red Book. Offline layout, most companies choose direct and franchise sales network layout, other companies such as Aofei Entertainment, Bon Bao Puzzle, Gao Le shares and Chuang Yuan shares choose the layout of supermarket bookstore distribution.

The IPs of Kechler International are all outsourced IPs, and they adopt the way of cooperation with popular IPs to sell the corresponding tide games in order to attract the fans of the IPs. TOPTOY, the brand of Fame, started to extend its IP design and creation business to the upstream, and began to lay out its own IP business, with its own IPs such as Twinkle, Tammy, BUZZ, YoYo, Umasou!

IP incubation cycle is long + high investment, the first entrant may not be able to bear the operating pressure.

Tide industry has the characteristics of long laying cycle and high investment.

(1) IP development cycle is long: according to Bubble Mart prospectus, the tide play products from design and development to go through 8-15 months of incubation cycle.

Specifically, whether it is own IP, exclusive IP or non-exclusive IP, all have to go through the process of 2D sketch design by artists, 3D design by internal design and industrial development team, coloring work by internal design and industrial development team, mold production and mass production, and marketing plan, each link takes 1-6 months.

In addition, if it involves cross-border cooperation between IPs or external IPs, the preparation and review time will be increased by 2-9 months on top of the original one.

2) High product development costs: According to 36 krypton data, the cost of tide play products include early sampling costs, design costs, mold opening costs and mass production costs, the highest of which is the cost of mold opening and mass production costs - the more complex the mold opening, the larger the output, the higher the cost.

Generally speaking, a normal mold cost is 20,000 to 30,000 yuan, according to a set of ten toys, a set of toys, mold costs up to 200,000 to 300,000 yuan.

In addition, plus the design costs, inventory costs, etc., for companies starting out in the industry will form a certain amount of financial pressure. And if the popularity of the product in the market is uncertain, but also requires a certain amount of additional fault tolerance costs, etc., smaller enterprises or difficult to support.

Branding trend is highlighted, user expansion and high-end for the main theme

The blind box is only an entry category for the masses, but the trendy game is not only the blind box. From the perspective of the price band of the trendy game category, the blind box is more affordable than the handicraft, BJD and art toys, and the low customer unit and the set of series make the blind box can maintain high repurchase and high circulation under the prominent attribute of FMCG products; the segmentation track level also shows that the high-end trendy game is currently more concentrated in the niche luxury circle, similar to the NFT digital collection, and the designer or IP value recognition is the core of consumer education under the high price threshold. For example, the pre-sale winning rate of Bubble Mart MEGA Collection is only about 1.7%, which also reflects that the high-end hipster game will be driven by the high price of the market scale of the niche circle on top of the mass of blind boxes.

The trend of branding + high loyalty of players in the pit, high-end and repurchase drive high growth. Bubble Mart, as the first domestic company to build IP platform operation, occupies the low position of the head with the first-mover advantage of the industry chain, and the concentration of the industry is expected to increase with the brand power advantage becoming more and more prominent. Looking into the future space, the volume of the head brand to pull new + into the pit players high loyalty under the repurchase rate drive, the price of the mass models to raise prices + from the blind box leap to high-end big baby / handbag pull up, the overall bullish tide play market high growth.