At a recent corporate briefing, HYBE announced first-quarter earnings and addressed the issue over BTS’s military service.
On the afternoon of May 3rd (Korean time), a conference call was held to announce HYBE’s first-quarter earnings. Accordingly, in the first quarter of 2022, the company made 37 billion won in consolidated operating profit, up 62.7% year-on-year. Revenue reached 285 billion won, up 59.8% from the same period last year.
Among them, concert sales amounted to 61.3 billion won, showing a big difference from the same period last year, when there were no concert sales in the aftermath of COVID-19. Album sales also rose 18.5% to 64.6 billion won. Net profit increased 78.7% to 30.8 billion won.
Earlier in March 2022, BTS successfully held an in-person concert at Jamsil Stadium, Seoul, gathering 45,000 fans, the largest number of attendees since the start of the pandemic in Korea.
HYBE’s CEO Park Ji Won said, “During the first quarter of this year, as we were able to resume large-scale offline events, it was like a new start for HYBE. Being with BTS is a great blessing to HYBE and should not be taken for granted. This is only the beginning of BTS’s journey. We will continue to walk side by side until the end.” He added, “Unfortunately, we could not take home the Grammy, but we will consider it a motivation for our new goal.”
Regarding the issue of BTS’s military service, CEO Park expressed a cautious stance, saying, “There is still no fixed timing or method of enlistment. We ask for your understanding that we can only give limited answers. Once a specific plan is decided, we will inform fans and investors immediately.”
