'Poketmonppang' Sells 115 Million Units... First Since Samlib Hobbang

Over 15 Million More Sold in One Month After Surpassing 100 Million Last Month
Pokemon Hobbang Also Surpasses 3 Million Sales in Just 3 Weeks After Launch

SPC Samlip's 'Pokemon Bread'. Photo by SPC Samlip

The popularity of ‘Pokemon Bread’ continues into the new year.

According to the distribution industry on the 8th, SPC Samlip’s Pokemon Bread has sold 115 million units as of that day. Previously, it surpassed 100 million units sold as of the 6th of last month, meaning about 15 million more units were sold within a month.

Among mass-produced bread products sold domestically, this is the first case since Samlip Hobang that annual sales exceeded 100 million units.

An SPC Samlip official said, “It is a record-breaking event that sales remain high and are increasing rapidly despite adverse domestic and international conditions such as the recent economic downturn.”

Pokemon Bread, re-released by SPC Samlip on February 24 last year after 24 years, experienced a shortage immediately after its launch. The sales speed of Pokemon Bread was astonishing. Over 1.5 million units were sold within a week of release, and 3.5 million units within two weeks.

Even afterward, production could not keep up with demand, leading to so-called ‘convenience store open runs’ where customers rushed to convenience stores at the time of Pokemon Bread restocking.

While one bag of Pokemon Bread costs 1,500 won, it was sold for over 10,000 won?more than six times the price?on secondhand trading sites, and rare Ttibuttibu seals were traded for 40,000 to 50,000 won.

The key to Pokemon Bread’s popularity is undoubtedly the Pokemon character 'Ttibuttibu Seal' (stickers that can be peeled off and stuck again) enclosed in each bread bag. The Ttibuttibu Seal is a sticker featuring various characters from the TV animation Pokemon. Among the 159 Pokemon characters, since it is unknown which sticker will come with the Pokemon Bread, it is like a kind of random box, and some consumers continue to buy and collect bread until they obtain rare characters. The elementary, middle, and high school students who were obsessed with collecting these seals when they were first released in the late 1990s have now grown into office workers in their 30s and 40s, known as ‘big spenders’ in the distribution market. With increased purchasing power, these consumers open their wallets recalling those memories.

Noticing the Pokemon Bread craze, the distribution industry has been launching character products one after another to challenge the market. Not only competitors like Lotte Confectionery but also convenience stores such as GS25 and CU have introduced PB breads collaborating with mobile game characters from MapleStory and Cookie Run.

Thanks to this, the overall domestic mass-produced bread market has also expanded. According to Euromonitor, as of the end of last year, the domestic mass-produced bread market size was 806.3 billion won, an 11.09% increase compared to the previous year.

SPC Samlip is riding the momentum to introduce new products. The Pokemon Hobang, launched last month, sold 3 million units within three weeks, continuing the popularity of Pokemon Bread. The enclosed winter limited edition 'Big Ttibuttibu Seal' also became a hot topic on social networking services (SNS).