Kakao Entertainment is moving to establish a new cross-border benchmark for K-pop popularity, teaming up with China’s Tencent Music Entertainment Group and Japan’s LINE MUSIC to launch a unified K-pop Artist Chart.
The chart, scheduled to debut in the first half of next year, will consolidate K-pop usage data from three of Asia’s largest music markets—South Korea, China and Japan—into a single ranking. It will be available on Melon, Kakao Entertainment’s flagship music streaming platform.
Kakao Entertainment said on Tuesday that the new chart will aggregate listening data from Melon with K-pop streams recorded on Tencent Music’s major platforms, including QQ Music, Kugou Music, Kuwo Music and WeSing, as well as Japan’s LINE MUSIC. The initiative is designed to offer a more comprehensive and standardized view of K-pop’s reach across the region.
Rankings will be calculated based on objectively measured user activity and consumption patterns across the participating platforms, the company said. Kakao Entertainment expects the chart to help fans track regional K-pop trends, while providing artists and record labels with data-driven insights to inform promotional and release strategies.
Melon, which has more than 20 years of history, already publishes widely followed rankings such as its Top 100 chart. Since June 2023, Melon’s data has also been incorporated into global rankings by Billboard, underscoring its growing influence in international music metrics.
Tencent Music operates several leading platforms across China and parts of Southeast Asia, while LINE MUSIC is closely integrated with Japan’s LINE messaging app, which has about 99 million users nationwide.
“This collaboration among three companies leading Asia’s music industry is especially meaningful,” said Kakao Entertainment Chief Executive Yoon-joong Jang. “By presenting a reliable, global-standard chart for K-pop, we hope to create new value for the industry, artists and fans alike.”
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.kedglobal.com ’
