HYBE records highest quarterly revenue despite internal struggles.
HYBE announced on August 7 KST that it achieved a consolidated revenue of 640.5 billion KRW in the second quarter of 2024. This surpasses the record-breaking revenue of 621 billion KRW from the same period last year.
For the first half of the year, HYBE recorded a total revenue of 1.014 trillion KRW, marking the second consecutive year of exceeding 1 trillion KRW in the first half, following last year’s 1.0316 trillion KRW. This achievement is particularly noteworthy given that BTS, one of HYBE’s flagship acts, was not active as a group due to fulfilling their military duties.
The record-breaking second-quarter performance was driven by direct participation sales, including albums and music streams, which amounted to 423.9 billion KRW. Despite a decline in overall album sales in the K-pop market since the second half of last year, the albums of major HYBE artists continued to perform well, maintaining direct participation sales at a level similar to the previous year.
In the first half of the year, HYBE artists sold over 15 million albums, accounting for 34% of all album sales in South Korea. HYBE also saw strong results in music streaming. According to Spotify, 8 of the top 10 most-streamed K-pop songs worldwide (excluding South Korea) in the first half of the year were by HYBE artists.
However, the consolidated operating profit for the second quarter was 50.9 billion KRW, down 37% from the same period last year. HYBE attributed the decline in operating profit to the initial costs associated with the launch of various new businesses and the expansion of its lineup of new artists. The company stated, “The business is progressing smoothly as planned, and with numerous domestic and international activities scheduled for our artists, we expect profitability to improve from the third quarter onwards.”
Recently, HYBE has been experiencing internal turmoil, particularly involving ADOR’s CEO Min Hee Jin and issues related to a potential takeover of management rights.
SEE ALSO: BTS’s ‘Dynamite’ becomes first K-Pop song to hit 1.9 billion Spotify streams
