A diminutive player in China’s booming collectible-toy market is making an outsized move. Sunny & Sandy (桑尼森迪), best known for 9.9‑yuan blind boxes sold in convenience stores and neighborhood shops, has filed to list in Hong Kong, thrusting a low‑cost challenger into a sector that has spent the last half‑decade chasing scarcity and emotional premiums.
The company’s 2025 first nine‑month results help explain the timing. Revenue jumped 134.6% year‑on‑year to RMB 386 million, while IP toy sales swelled from RMB 76 million a year earlier to RMB 303 million. Unit volumes exploded too: IP toy shipments rose from 6.4 million in 2023 to 58.1 million in the first three quarters of 2025, driven by expansive retail reach — about 32,000 outlets nationwide by September 2025 — and a play for the “impulse buy” consumer.
Sunny & Sandy’s model is simple: minimise price friction rather than maximise collector fervour. Standard products retail at RMB 9.9, no queues, no lotteries, and no resale premiums. That contrasts starkly with incumbents like Pop Mart (泡泡玛特), where a single premium blind box can cost RMB 69 and where margins have been far higher; Sunny & Sandy’s gross margin sits at 35.3%, implying roughly RMB 3.5 gross profit per item at the standard price.
Scale has offset thin per‑unit returns. The firm has pushed automation to seven‑by‑24 production and high turnover to stimulate repeat purchases, while leveraging licensed properties — both domestic “guochao” IP and international brands — to ride cultural moments. Its bet on the blockbuster animation Nezha 2 paid off: a pre‑sale of over 340,000 sets on Douyin helped the company “go viral” over Chinese New Year and contributed to a swing from a RMB 16.48 million loss in the prior period to RMB 51.96 million net profit in the 2025 nine months.
That success, however, conceals material risks. Licensing costs have ballooned from RMB 6.48 million in 2023 to RMB 50.77 million in the latest period, accounting for roughly 20% of total costs. Sunny & Sandy currently lacks proprietary IP and relies on time‑limited, non‑exclusive licences — some as short as 12 months — creating exposure if partners choose other operators or demand higher fees.
Price discipline compounds the tension. To maintain accessibility in mom‑and‑pop retail channels the company has accepted heavy promotional pricing: some Nezha blind boxes sold for as little as RMB 8.8 in certain outlets, 23% below official pricing. Incremental cost pressure and the difficulty of passing on higher licence fees without eroding the brand’s low‑price appeal leave the company squeezed between margin improvement and customer price sensitivity.
Sunny & Sandy’s IPO bid also reflects a wider maturation of the Chinese collectible and pan‑entertainment market. Several peers — including Kayou, 52TOYS’ parent, TOPTOY, and others — are pursuing listings, and Frost & Sullivan estimates the global pan‑entertainment merchandise market reached about US$82.2 billion in 2024 with an expected five‑year CAGR near 17%. The race is no longer just about securing marquee IP; it is about monetising it more efficiently and building durable conversion from IP to repeat revenue.
The strategic choice for Sunny & Sandy is stark. It can try to translate scale into upward pricing or investment in proprietary IP, or remain a low‑price volume player vulnerable to rising licence costs and sharper competition. Listing will provide capital to buy time, but it will not automatically produce the creative capabilities and exclusive rights that underpin long‑term value in this industry. The company’s near‑term future depends on whether it can convert episodic hits into repeatable, owned franchises without abandoning the price point that made it successful.