The Shocking First Quarter 2024 Business Results Of The “Big Four” K-Pop Labels

In the midst of all the company drama happening at HYBE Labels these days, the first quarter business results for 2024 for the “Big Four” K-Pop labels — which include HYBE, SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, and YG Entertainment — have been released, and they’re quite shocking to many.

The below graph shows the revenue made by each of the four labels in the first three months of 2024. Blue is HYBE, peach is SM, green is JYP, and gray is YG. Revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services for each company, and doesn’t include any expenses.

HYBE made a revenue of 360.9 billion won ($264.0 million USD) in the first quarter, SM made 220 billion won ($160.9 million USD), JYP made 136.5 billion won ($99.9 million USD), and YG made 87.3 billion won ($63.9 million USD).

The second graph shows the operating profit for each of the four labels. The operating profit is a company’s profit after all expenses are taken out except for the cost of debt, taxes, and certain one-off items.

In this category, HYBE made an operating profit of 14.4 billion won ($10.5 million USD), SM made 15.5 billion won ($11.3 million USD), JYP made 33.6 billion won ($24.6 million USD), and YG actually was in the negative at -7 billion won (-$5.1 million USD).

Finally, the last graph shows the net profit made by all of the “Big Four” labels. Net income is the profit remaining after all costs incurred in the period — in this case, the first quarter of 2024 — have been subtracted from revenue generated from sales (which was shown in the first graph).

Even though HYBE made the most revenue in the first quarter, they made the second-least net profit at 2.9 billion won ($2.1 million USD). SM made the second-most with 12.4 billion won ($9.1 million USD), JYP made the highest at 31.4 billion won ($23.0 million USD), and YG made the least at 400 million won ($292.6k USD).

Here’s how Korean netizens are reacting to the data, with a particular amount of scrutiny being directed at HYBE for the huge difference between their revenue and net profit.

• “What the, where is the money leaking from HYBE? Why is the net profit so?”
• “Isn’t HYBE too bad???”
• “I think they should do a tax audit of HYBE, where did the money go?”
• “JYP is completely good.”
• “Where the hell is HYBE spending its money, with 2.9 billion left from 360 billion in sales?”
• “What the hell is going on?”
• “HYBE really needs to be investigated.”
• “The more we learn about it, the weirder it is.”
• “JYP is good at his job.”
• “SM has many subsidiaries and invests a lot, but they make good profits.”
• “Where did HYBE throw all of their money away?”
• “If you rob more of your subsidiaries, your net profit will increase even more.”

What do you think about these first quarter business reports?