HYBE Continues To Reach All-Time Career High Thanks To Artists And Support Of Fans

With BTS Jungkook’s stage at New York’s Times Square becoming a hot topic daily, HYBE LABELS artists continue their record-breaking success. It is an unrivaled achievement that dispels some concerns about the remarkable growth in albums, where it has traditionally been strong, but also in music streaming, attracting attention as to why.

BTS’s Jungkook | @bts_bighit/Twitter

According to HYBE, Jungkook’s solo album, GOLDEN, is breaking new sales records at home and abroad, selling a total of 2,147,389 copies on the first day of release alone. This is the highest first-day sales among albums released by a Korean solo artist. The album also sold 2,438,483 copies in the week immediately after its release. With this, Jungkook became the Korean solo artist with the highest initial sales volume (first week of release).

GOLDEN is the first K-pop solo artist album to sell more than 200,000 copies in the first week of release in the United States. The secret to the success is that it presented high-quality music and performances through collaboration with famous artists based on HYBE America’s network.

SEVENTEEN‘s new record streak is also currently in progress. The 11th mini album, SEVENTEENTH HEAVEN, released last month, sold more than 5 million copies in the first week, the first in K-pop history. Including the results of the tenth mini album, FML, released last April, Seventeen sold over 16 million albums this year alone. This is a territory that no other K-pop artist has reached.

K-Pop idol group TXT | @TXT_bighit/Twitter

TXT’s album, The Name Chapter: FREEFALL, sold 2.25 million copies within a week from the release date. With this, TXT broke its own initial release record and recorded two consecutive first-week double million-seller albums in the shortest period of time (4 years and 7 months) since debut among K-pop artists.

ENHYPEN’s momentum is also formidable. Their fifth mini album, ORANGE BLOOD, has been creating a buzz right after its release. Sales on the first day alone reached 1,383,292 copies, surpassing the initial sales of 1.32 million copies of the previous fourth mini album, DARK BLOOD.

HYBE artists’ “career high” records are significant because it was achieved amidst concerns about uncertainty in the music market raised by some. This is because it shows a decoupled aspect that is different from other K-pop companies.

The decoupling phenomenon is the result of an expansion strategy that HYBE has been implementing for several years. HYBE has previously carried out a merger/acquisition of Ithaca Holdings and QC Media Holdings in the U.S. and a joint girl group project with Universal Music Group (UMG). Recently, it announced its entry into the Latin music market by establishing a Latin American corporation. This resulted in overcoming regional limitations and simultaneously expanding the spectrum of the core customer base, the fandom.

K-Pop girl group LE SSERAFIM | @le_sserafim/Twitter

HYBE LABELS artists’ new records continue in the music sector as well. With “Perfect Night’” LE SSERAFIM became the first K-pop girl group to reach number one on Melon’s Top 100 and Daily charts with an English song. The theme song “GODS” by NewJeans for the 2023 LoL World Championship, recorded the highest number of music video views and Spotify streaming on the first day among the championship theme songs.

HYBE’s performance also improved due to the double effect of albums and music sources. As a result, HYBE’s third quarter of this year achieved its highest performance among all three quarters. Global expansion through aggressive investment resulted in the diversification of the proportion of sales concentrated in some regions to the entire world.

HYBE logo | HYBE

HYBE’s continued attempts to expand the scope of K-pop are expected to accelerate the decoupling phenomenon. One of HYBE’s differentiating points is that it has built a network with world-class composers and producers through steady mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and collaboration with global music companies. The foundation has been laid to maintain solid growth regardless of geopolitical risks in a specific region.

The market is also giving a positive evaluation of HYBE’s expansion strategy. In a report earlier this month, Eugene Investment & Securities evaluated that the multi-label and acquisition strategy has been successfully established, saying, “It is positive that artist IPs are becoming more diverse and the contribution of acquired American labels to music sales is increasing.” Daishin Securities also recently stated, “Profit growth for low-age IP will be greater than that of competitors due to high demand in Western markets with high purchasing power.”

A HYBE official said, “We are on a box office hit thanks to the outstanding capabilities of our artists, the support of our fans, and our company-wide expansion strategy. We will do our best to establish a sustainable growth structure through aggressive investment.”