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SM, YG, JYP double sales in just 3 years

April 8, 2014

SM chief Lee Soo-man(from left), YG boss Yang Hyun-suk, and JYP’s Park Jin-young have good reasons to smile. (Newsis)

Total sales for the top three K-pop management companies — S.M. Entertainment, Y.G. Entertainment and JYP Entertainment — have almost doubled in the past three years thanks to the driving power of idols and Hallyu.

S.M., which manages Girls’ Generation, Super Junior, EXO, SHINee and others, had 164.3 billion won (about $156 million) in sales last year, a 90.2 percent increase from 86.4 billion won (about $81.8 million) in 2010, according to the Financial Supervisory Service’s Data Analysis, Retrieval and Transfer System (DART) on Tuesday.

Its sales and profits hit a high in 2012 and saw a decrease last year, from sales of 199 billion won (about $189 million) in 2011 to 168.6 billion won (about $160 million) in 2012 to 164.3 billion won (about $156 million) in 2013.

S.M.’s album sales hit 2,259,329 last year, placing it at No. 1 with 38.9 percent of all music sales in Korea. S.M. Culture and Contents took second place with 6.9 percent, and Y.G. took third with 6.7 percent.

S.M. President Lee Soo-man is the largest shareholder of the company with 21.27 percent.

In addition, Y.G.’s sales increased 135.9 percent in three years, from 44.8 billion won (about $42.5 million) in 2010 to 157 billion won (about $149 million) in 2013.

Last year, Y.G., which manages Big Bang and 2NE1, was No. 1 in digital music sales with 5.6 percent. In comparison, S.M. was No. 7 with 3.9 percent.

The largest shareholder of Y.G. is Yang Hyun-seok, who holds 29.9 percent of the company’s stocks. Following him with 5.42 percent is his brother, Yang Min-seok.

JYP — home of idols such as 2PM, 2AM, Miss A – too, saw an overall increase. Its sales went up 74.5 percent since 2010, from 10.2 billion won (about $9.69 million) to 17.8 billion won (about $16.9 million) in 2013.

Park Jin-young is JYP’s largest shareholder with 16.43 percent of stocks.

At S.M., five directors made more than 500 million won (about $475,000) last year, while Kim Myung-min, CEO of S.M., made 1,312,000,000 won (about $1.24 million).