HYBE logs record-high Q1 profit despite BTS break

South Korea’s HYBE Co. behind global sensation BTS on Tuesday reported a 41.5% surge in first-quarter profit, driven by BTS members’ outstanding solo works and solid performance by other artists such as boy band SEVENTEEN and girl group NewJeans.

After two BTS members -- Jin and j-hope -- began their mandatory military service, the five remaining members have focused on solo projects.

In March, Jimin released the group’s first solo album and soon became K-pop’s first solo act to top the US Billboards’ main singles chart.

Consolidated operating profit at HYBE reached 52.5 billion won ($39 million) in the first quarter, preliminary data showed. The figure marked its largest ever earnings for any first quarter.

Revenue spiked 44.1% on-year to a record 410.6 billion won. Music album sales skyrocketed 185.1% on-year to 184.3 billion won, selling 9.1 million copies. That is more than four times what it sold in the year-earlier period.

For the rest of this year, HYBE’s Chief Executive Park Ji-won gave an upbeat outlook at a conference call on Tuesday, despite a years-long hiatus for BTS.

The entertainment powerhouse expects to generate a steady stream of profits from a diverse range of its performers under a “multi-label system," Park said.
 
Last month, another BTS member Suga released his first solo album D-DAY.

The five-member idol NewJeans is scheduled to roll out new songs in the third quarter. SEVENTEEN is preparing for a second-half world tour on a larger scale than last year’s.

Another boy group Tomorrow X Together (TXT) will perform as a headliner at this year’s Lollapallooza, a four-day music festival in Chicago.

Girl group Le Sserafim’s will hold concerts in both South Korea and Japan in the second half. 

“To expand by region and music genre, we are transforming into a new business structure to produce global artists on an ongoing basis,” Park noted.

As part of such efforts, it is now teaming up with Universal Music Group to debut an American girl group.

ONLINE FAN COMMUNITY

With a market capitalization of 11.8 trillion won, HYBE has been beefing up its online fandom platform Weverse as a new growth driver.

The fan community boasts 9.3 million monthly active users, up 10% from the fourth quarter of 2022.

A dozen artists or music groups of SM Entertainment Co. will join Weverse later this year under a business partnership with HYBE. Weverse members will be available to buy goods featuring those artists, including the K-pop girl group Blackpink of YG Entertainment Inc. and watch their livestream concerts.

Merchandise sales jumped 32.8% to 176.1 billion won. A film about one of BTS’ music concerts was also booked under merchandise sales.

HYBE has been actively diversifying its business portfolio by advancing into non-music production areas such as game, performance and fan meeting platforms, as well as intellectual property, multimedia content and education businesses.

In March, it backed down from its fight against Kakao Corp. for ownership of K-pop pioneer SM Entertainment Co. after its fierce competition with the mobile platform pushed SM's share price far above its bid price.

Write to Tae-Ung Bae at Btu104@hankyung.com

Yeonhee Kim edited this article.