# Master Copper Passes Listing Hearing: Is It "Bubble Mart for Middle-Aged People" or Just "Craftsman Foxconn" Stuck in Efficiency?

Recently, Hangzhou Tongshifu Cultural & Creative (Group) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Tongshifu”) officially passed the Hong Kong Stock Exchange listing hearing. This company, praised by Lei Jun as “the most Xiaomi-like enterprise outside the Xiaomi ecosystem,” has finally secured a ticket to the capital market.

However, standing on the high ground of Hong Kong stocks—where global sentiment-driven consumption and Eastern aesthetics valuation converge—Tongshifu still faces sharp scrutiny:

In an era when Pop Mart, with Labubu, is sweeping the globe and its performance continues to soar, is Tongshifu truly a victory of emotion economy centered on copper craftsmanship, or just a craft manufacturing factory cloaked in Chinese潮 (Chao) style?

Tongshifu, a victory in efficiency revolution

Tracing back to Tongshifu’s business origins, its essence is indeed a “Xiaomi-style efficiency revolution” targeting the copper sculpture industry.

Founder Yu Guang, in his early years, witnessed the huge “sky-high price gap” between copper material costs and finished product prices. At that time, copper costing tens of thousands of yuan per ton was used to create Guan Gong statues worth millions, establishing the core strategy of “artistic standards, industrial product prices.”

Starting in 2013, Tongshifu successfully brought the originally collectible-grade copper sculptures into mass consumption by introducing industrialized lost-wax casting and online direct sales channels.

From a copper gourd priced at 39 yuan to thousand-yuan-level ornaments, Tongshifu transformed non-standard handmade crafts into standardized industrial consumer products.

This “high quality-to-price ratio” strategy was highly effective in the early days. It allowed Tongshifu to quickly consolidate the chaotic copper art market, capturing 35% of the domestic copper cultural and creative market, forming a duopoly with Zhu Bingren Copper, which focuses on “intangible cultural heritage high-end collectibles,” with a market share of about 31.8%.

However, this success also planted hidden risks. Tongshifu’s early growth heavily relied on supply chain efficiency and pricing advantages, which led to a growth logic dominated by “industrial thinking” rather than the pure “IP assetization logic” of潮玩 (Chao Wan, trendy toys).

The past two years have seen a global explosion of emotion economy, especially潮玩 economy. But according to financial reports, Tongshifu’s revenue only increased slightly from 500.3 million yuan in 2022 to 571 million yuan in 2024, with net profit margin recovering to 13.8%.

Compared to Pop Mart’s gross profit margin of over 60% and explosive performance growth, Tongshifu appears too steady.

The root of the problem lies in the fact that Tongshifu’s core competitiveness is more about extreme control of copper costs and channel flattening, rather than the圈层裂变 (layered community expansion) and超额溢价 (excessive premium) brought by IP itself.

Is it a pseudo潮玩 trapped in “middle-aged emotion”?

Tongshifu is often labeled by the market as “middle-aged people’s Pop Mart,” but this is precisely the biggest paradox in its valuation logic.

From a product perspective, Tongshifu accurately targets the “Guan Gong and Caishen” complex of men aged 30-55. Its popular IPs like Sun Wukong, Gourd, and Treasure-Pouch Basin are all tangible representations of traditional blessing culture.

This “self-pleasure + blessing + collection” consumption logic has built a high repurchase rate in private domain traffic, but also formed a tough圈层壁垒 (community barrier).

The core of潮玩 is social currency and圈层突破 (layered community breakthrough)—a vehicle for young people to show off and find like-minded peers. In contrast, Tongshifu’s IP operation remains in a traditional “closed logic,” lacking the meme culture and secondary creation space needed for youth-oriented传播 (spread). Heavy copper ornaments inherently lack lightweight, portable, and easily shareable social genes.

Data doesn’t lie. Tongshifu’s repurchase rate is roughly comparable to Pop Mart’s. According to the prospectus, Tongshifu’s average repurchase rate has remained above 50% over the years. But this mainly stems from middle-aged and elderly groups repeatedly purchasing for “home protection” and “wealth attraction” functions, rather than young consumers’ passionate emotional attachment to IP.

More concerning is that Tongshifu’s online average order value has dropped from 958 yuan in 2022 to 598 yuan in the first three quarters of 2025. This is not a consumption upgrade but a result of the brand lowering thresholds to penetrate the mass market in order to maintain scale.

When a company cannot attract the new generation of consumers to pay high premiums for its IP and can only lower prices to boost sales, its “潮玩魅力” (trend toy charm) is being diluted.

Indeed, as emotional consumption shifts from “private pleasure” to “public display/social,” Tongshifu’s overly steady growth curve and the exponential trajectories of old brands like Gold and Pop Mart are clearly out of sync.

It has maintained its existing customer base but failed to capture the most explosive incremental dividends of the emotion economy.

Ultimately, Tongshifu remains a vertical category company serving specific age groups and psychological needs, rather than a universal潮流文化 (trend culture) brand.

Breaking the ceiling, building aligned Eastern aesthetics

Faced with the constraints of “middle-aged emotion” and material limitations, Tongshifu is not unaware of the crisis.

In fact, during its tumultuous listing journey, Tongshifu has launched a series of self-revolutions in craft innovation, IP ecosystem construction, and R&D system upgrades, attempting to use technological depth, cultural richness, and IP breadth to break the stereotype of “craft factory.”

In terms of craft innovation, Tongshifu is trying to deeply integrate traditional intangible cultural heritage techniques with intelligent manufacturing to address rising copper prices and labor costs.

It has established a vertically integrated model covering research, design, development, production, and sales, and introduced advanced equipment such as AI laser cutting, digital etching, and robotic precision casting. This not only improves the stability of complex structures but also liberates artisans from repetitive physical labor, allowing focus on core artistic refinement.

More critically, its aggressive IP strategy is reshaping its development. Tongshifu no longer relies solely on “original + licensed” dual engines but aims to build a cross-material, cross-dimension Oriental aesthetic IP universe.

By the end of 2024, Tongshifu had assembled a 119-person professional R&D team, with cumulative R&D investment exceeding 75 million yuan over three years, accounting for up to 5.7% of revenue.

This team has incubated self-developed super IPs like “Great Sage” and “Horse Rushing to Success,” which contribute over 90% of revenue, and has rapidly secured licenses for top cultural symbols such as “Nezha,” Dunhuang cultural and creative products, and Sanxingdui, extending even to international IPs like “Game of Thrones” and “Avengers.”

From 2022 to 2024, SKU numbers surged from less than 2,137 to 2,485, with an average of over 500 new products annually. This high-density product iteration capability is a strong sign of its attempt to shed the “low-frequency collectible” label and move toward high-frequency潮玩 logic.

Additionally, Tongshifu’s material palette is quietly expanding. Besides core copper cultural and creative products, it has successfully extended into plastic潮玩, silver cultural and creative items, and gold cultural products, launching sub-brands like “Happy Little Generals” and “Xijiang Gold Shop.” Although these new businesses currently account for less than 5% of revenue, they demonstrate Tongshifu’s effort to build a multi-material output model centered on copper and IP.

On a broader industry level, these breakthrough measures reveal that the most pressing ceiling for Tongshifu is the clear limit of the copper cultural and creative track. According to Frost & Sullivan, even by 2029, the entire market size will only reach 2.3 billion yuan.

This means Tongshifu’s real competitors are not Zhu Bingren Copper or listed companies, but the rapidly evolving emotion consumption industry.

Once the supply chain is integrated to a certain extent, Tongshifu’s next core challenge must be shifting from material-driven to IP-driven development—transforming from selling copperware to selling symbols of Eastern aesthetics, and achieving cross-material, cross-category IP output.

Only then can it truly break the curse of “niche craft products.” Otherwise, it will forever be just a “Foxconn in ornaments,” unable to become the “Disney” of潮玩.