Business results in 2018: SM’s is 3 times more than Bighit’s but the profit might be surprising

The idols have had a booming and successful year, but the most prominent is still BTS when the group earned huge amounts of money for their agency.

2018 continued to be a year of exciting and successful activities of Korean idols, from popular groups like BTS, Wanna One, TWICE, BlackPink or the boom of solo stars such as Chungha and Sunmi. Not only continuously having comebacks, but the idols were also busy holding concerts throughout Asia, Europe and America to meet fans, while also bringing huge revenues to the agency. The most prominent is still Big3, next to an emerging “giant” named Bighit.

Below is an estimate of sales, profits, wages for employees of SM, JYP, YG and Bighit:

Accordingly, it can be seen that SM still dominates the Kpop industry with outstanding revenue, about 605 billion won, nearly 5 times the amount JYP collected.

In order to get this impressive figure, President Lee Soo Man will surely have to thank DBSK, Super Junior, Red Velvet and EXO. Despite passing the golden age but DBSK and Super Junior‘s concerts or albums still received great support from the international fan community. Besides, the Red Velvet girls had a year of hard work with 3 comebacks. EXO, despite returning only on the last days of the year, also brought impressive revenue to SM.

However, the profits of the 4 companies were more unexpected. Although earning only about 224.5 billion won (about one third of SM’s), Bighit‘s net profit far surpassed those of Big3 and is even nearly 7 times more than YG‘s. And of course, people who have been able to handle and help this company to expand so far can only be BTS.

Ever since becoming a global icon, BTS has brought in the profit of 24.6 billion won to the company in 2017 and that number is even more amazing last year: 78.3 billion won. This is understandable when the group’s album has been sold millions of copies, concerts in Europe, America, even Citi Field (America) have no vacancies. Advertising activities, brand ambassadors, … more and more factors contribute to this achievement.

Meanwhile, JYP and YG have a less successful year, both in terms of sales and profits. Although there are many active artists, it can be seen that the main revenue of the two companies is only from TWICE and BlackPink. Big Bang‘s absence is also considered a big loss for “Daddy Yang”.

In addition, the salary administration for the employees of all 4 big companies is quite similar. However, the departure of more than 100 employees is also a negative sign for the activities of SM and YG.

Source: Kenh14