SM Entertainment has published its latest financial results. They’re the first since it fended off an attempt by rival HYBE to take control. The post SM Entertainment revenues grew 20.3% in first quarter of 2023 appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

The dust is settling from K-Pop firm Hybe’s attempt to become the largest shareholder in rival SM Entertainment. The post Hybe to sell SM Entertainment shares while Kakao plans global expansion appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

A sudden peace has broken out in the battle for control of K-Pop music company SM Entertainment, as Hybe abandoned its efforts to buy 40%. The post Hybe abandons its efforts to buy a 40% stake in SM Entertainment appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Things are moving fast in South Korean tech company Kakao’s efforts to buy a stake in K-Pop firm SM Entertainment. The post Kakao wants to buy a bigger stake in K-Pop firm SM Entertainment appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

South Korean music company Hybe enjoyed another bumper year in 2022, with its revenues growing 41.6% to 1.78tn won. The post K-Pop giant Hybe’s revenues grew 41.6% to $1.36bn in 2022 appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

We wrote about tech firm Kakao buying a stake in Korean music company SM Entertainment earlier this week, but now it’s been joined by Hybe. The post Now Hybe moves to take a stake in K-Pop firm SM Entertainment appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Fresh from selling a 4.2% stake to mobile games firm Com2uS in November, South Korean music company SM Entertainment now has another investor. The post More K-Pop consolidation as Kakao buys into SM Entertainment appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

The music industry has been thinking a lot about how South Korean artists like BTS and Blackpink are growing their audiences. The post Gap widens between YouTube and Melon services in South Korea appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Korean creative industry body KOCCA’s report on the first half of 2022 held good news for South Korea’s music industry. The post South Korea music revenues grew by 31.7% in first half of 2022 appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

K-Pop giant Hybe has published its financial results for the third quarter of 2022. The post Hybe revenues grow and Com2uS buys stake in SM Entertainment appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

The music industry knows all about YouTube’s role in bringing K-Pop music to the world, from Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ to the success of BTS and Blackpink. The post Data suggests YouTube Music is rising fast in South Korea appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Apple will abide by new rules in South Korea that ban app store owners from forcing developers to use their own in-app payment systems. The post Apple set to allow alternative payment systems in South Korea appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Spotify is excited about having finally launched in South Korea, but the company will be rather less excited about losing a significant chunk of its K-Pop catalogue globally. After licensing negotiations broke down with one of South Korea’s biggest distributors, Kakao M, the latter’s music has been removed from the streaming service. The fact that […]

K-Pop giant Big Hit Entertainment had an excellent 2020 despite the Covid-19 pandemic. Its financial results, published yesterday, revealed that the company behind BTS’s revenues grew by 36% last year to KRW 796.3bn (around $716.7m). The breakdown is very interesting too. Concert revenues dropped off a cliff, unsurprisingly: down 98% to KRW 3.4bn. However, album sales […]

South Korea’s music business remains buoyant in 2021, with digital music in particular on the rise – despite K-Pop fans’ enduring love of physical goods The post Country Profile – South Korea 2021 appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

A group of video streaming services in South Korea are protesting at plans to increase the royalties they pay for music used in the content on their platforms. The Korea Herald has the story, which explains that the Korea Music Copyright Association (Komca) proposed an increase in rates for Korean video services from 0.625% of […]

As we’ve found out when reporting on any story comparing BTS and Blackpink, different K-Pop fandoms can be… competitive. So it’s anyone’s guess what they’ll make of the news that BTS’s parent company Big Hit Entertainment is planning to invest 70bn won (around $63m) in rival YG Entertainment, which includes Blackpink, Bigbang and Psy among […]

Warner Music Group’s distribution arm ADA Worldwide is on an expansion drive. In July, it launched ADA Latin to oversee Latin America and Latin music in the US as well as Spain and Portugal. Now it’s turning its attention to Asia. ADA Asia will be headquartered in Singapore, with a remit to sign up artists and independent […]

In March, BTS launched a new video series online called ‘Learn Korean with BTS’ – 30 three-minute lessons teaching their global fanbase how to speak the band’s native language. Now this has evolved into a physical package developed by the educational arm of Big Hit Entertainment, the band’s management company. The new product includes four textbooks and a […]

K-pop is the genre that ate the world whole. Acts like BTS, Blackpink, Twice and TVXQ are not just some of the biggest acts within the genre – they are some of the biggest acts in the world. There is a lot that other artists can learn from how K-pop markets itself, how its acts […]

Lead: K-pop is eating the world whole and is changing what marketing – especially superfan-centric marketing – can do. We speak to those working in and around the K-pop world to learn how the genre markets itself, where its acts engage with their fans to build incredible levels of loyalty, why trans-media marketing underscores everything they do […]

We really hope that means ‘Learn Korean with BTS’ – blame Google Translate if not! We wrote about Weverse earlier this year as part of our report on K-Pop giant Big Hit Entertainment’s latest financial results: it’s a fan community platform focusing on artists including BTS, TXT, Seventeen and Gfriend, launched by Big Hit subsidiary beNX. Now it […]

Flo, owned by SK Telecom, is one of the main music streaming services in South Korea. It used to run a near-real-time chart (updated hourly) showing what the most popular songs were on the platform. That has now been replaced by a new Flo Chart that updates every 24 hours that allows it to use […]

Analytics firm Wiseapp has published some new estimates for YouTube’s popularity in South Korea. Well, its popularity on Android smartphones anyway. The company reckons that YouTube had nearly 34 million Android users in South Korea at the end of 2019, up 6% year-on-year. This, in a country with a population of 51.5 million, as TechCrunch points […]

Around one in five people in South Korea now subscribe to a music streaming service, as the country’s golden age for music – and for the music industry – shows little sign of abating. Recent industry estimates suggest that the total number of paying music subscribers in South Korea, across all domestic and international platforms, […]

Standing astride a hugely successful domestic output, the South Korean music industry is thriving across the genres and 2019 figures are expected to show another strong period of growth The post Country Profile – South Korea 2020 appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

The second morning at this year’s NY:LON Connect conference focused on ‘emerging international and influential markets’. Three territories in particular: South Korea, China, and Russia / Eastern Europe. The track began with a keynote from Sun Lee, YouTube’s head of music content partnerships and subscriptions for Korea and Greater China. Lee was interviewed by Billboard […]

The idea of the pop-up tied into an album release is hardly new and often involves taking over a small and recently vacated shop (or the site of a different pop-up from the previous week) and selling a few T-shirts and posters from it, hoping the pop stars themselves show up to gain a bit […]

Korean music firm Big Hit Entertainment held its latest media briefing yesterday, and dropped some impressive numbers to show how its business is surging in 2019. The company’s revenues in the first half of 2019 were more than 200bn Won (around $166m) – already more than Big Hit’s revenues for the whole of 2018. And […]

You may have noticed that K-Pop band BTS are just a little bit popular around the world. That’s now translating into financial success for the company behind them, Big Hit Entertainment. The firm reported a 132% growth in its annual revenues to 214bn won (around $190m) in 2018, with an operating profit of 64.1bn won […]

The post Country Profile – South Korea 2019 appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally