South Korean entertainment giant SM Entertainment<\/a> reported a 19.3% YoY<\/span> jump in consolidated revenue for the second quarter of 2025, driven by surging album sales and strong merchandise performance.<\/p>\n The agency, home to K-pop acts such as RIIZE, NCT 127, aespa,<\/b> and NCT DREAM<\/b>, booked 302.9 billion<\/b> South Korean won<\/b> (approx. USD $218 million) in Q2 consolidated revenue, up from 253.9 billion<\/b> won ($183m) a year earlier, according to its quarterly earnings report published Wednesday (August 6).<\/p>\n Of the total, revenue at parent company SM Entertainment surged 26.5% YoY<\/b> <\/span>to 220.3 billion won<\/b> ($159m), driven primarily by strong growth in album and digital music revenue, which jumped 37.9% YoY<\/b><\/span> to 99.0 billion<\/b> won <\/b>($71m).<\/p>\n The surge in album revenue came as \u201cnew album sales volume increased by over 1.9 million copies YoY,\u201d SM Entertainment<\/b> CFO Jeongmin Jang<\/b> told analysts during an earnings call.<\/p>\n RIIZE\u2019s debut full album ODYSSEY <\/i>led sales with 1.93 million<\/b> copies, followed by NCT WISH<\/b>\u2018s second mini album poppop <\/i>with 1.34 million<\/b> copies and aespa\u2019s single Dirty Work <\/i>with 900,000<\/b> units sold. Additional releases from Mark<\/b> and Doyoung<\/b> brought total new release sales to 5.79 million<\/b> copies for Q2.<\/p>\n SM Entertainment CEO Cheol-hyuk Jang<\/strong> said: \u201cThese achievements across our artist lineup continue to deepen our IP portfolio and enrich global fan experiences with even greater diversity.\u201d<\/p>\n Concert revenue in Q2 slipped 1.9% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to 33.6 billion<\/b> won<\/b> ($24.0m), with major performances including TVXQ!<\/b>\u2018s three Tokyo Dome concerts celebrating their 20th anniversary in Japan, NCT 127<\/b>\u2018s six shows across Japan and Macau, and SMTOWN 30th Anniversary concerts in London, LA, and Mexico City.<\/p>\n MD\/licensing revenue surged 39.6% YoY<\/b><\/span> to 63.9 billion<\/b> won <\/b>($46m), boosted by strong concert merchandise sales and successful pop-up events including NCT WISH\u2019s exhibition pop-up and RIIZE\u2019s character pop-up.<\/p>\n Operating profit jumped 92.4% YoY<\/b><\/span> to 47.6 billion won<\/b> ($34m), while net profit nearly tripled to 30.9 billion won<\/b> ($22m) from 8.4 billion won<\/b> ($6m).<\/p>\n Meanwhile, revenue from SM\u2019s major subsidiaries climbed 25.4% YoY<\/b> <\/span>to 141.5 billion won<\/b> ($102m). SM Entertainment Japan<\/b> posted strong growth of 38.6% YoY<\/b><\/span> to 26.0 billion won<\/b> ($19m) driven by expanded concert activity, while SM Brand Marketing<\/b> rose 38.2%<\/b> <\/span>to 19.5 billion<\/b> won ($14m) on increased album and merchandise sales.<\/p>\n However, SM C&C<\/b> continued its decline, falling 24.2% YoY<\/b><\/span> to 21.1 billion won<\/b> ($15m) due to reduced advertising revenue, while KEYEAST<\/b> plunged 81.7% YoY<\/b><\/span> to 3.0 billion won<\/b> ($2m) amid fewer drama broadcasts.<\/p>\n The newly consolidated superfan app operator DearU<\/b> contributed 20.2 billion won<\/b> ($14m) in Q2 revenue following its acquisition<\/a>.<\/p>\n Looking ahead, SM has a packed release schedule for the remainder of 2025. July releases included SUPER JUNIOR<\/b>\u2018s 12th full album marking their 20th anniversary and NCT DREAM\u2019s fifth album Go Back To The Future.<\/i> Q3 will see new mini albums from aespa and NCT WISH, while Q4 releases include a Taeyeon<\/b> full album, NCT DREAM mini album, WayV<\/b> mini album, Hearts2Hearts<\/b> mini album, and a RIIZE single.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s touring lineup for H2 2025 features RIIZE\u2019s first solo tour RIIZING LOUD<\/i> with 20 shows across Asia, NCT DREAM<\/b>\u2018s THE DREAM SHOW 4,<\/i> WayV\u2019s upcoming tour, and aespa\u2019s third concert tour 2025 SYNK: aeXIS LINE.<\/i><\/p>\n In his CEO message following the release of the Q2 results, Jang highlighted SM\u2019s partnership<\/a> with Tencent Music Entertainment<\/a><\/b>. In March, SM rival HYBE<\/b> agreed to sell its entire 9.38% <\/b>stake in SM to Tencent Music, which acquired 2.21 million <\/b>shares for 243.35 billion won<\/b> ($176m).<\/p>\n Jang said: \u201cThrough this alliance, we have established a practical and wide-ranging partnership that extends beyond music distribution to include content planning, fan data analysis, and concert execution in the China market.\u201d<\/p>\n Tencent has over 550 million<\/strong> monthly active users across its platforms including QQ Music, Kugou, <\/strong>and Kuwo.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIn the long term, we aim to create a comprehensive idol success model that combines SM Entertainment\u2019s global production capabilities with Tencent Music Entertainment\u2019s local marketing and distribution power \u2014 bridging global and local strengths.\u201d<\/p>\n Cheol-hyuk Jang, SM Entertainment<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The CEO added: \u201cIn the long term, we aim to create a comprehensive idol success model that combines SM Entertainment\u2019s global production capabilities with Tencent Music Entertainment\u2019s local marketing and distribution power \u2014 bridging global and local strengths.\u201d<\/p>\n Through the Tencent partnership, Jang said: \u201cSM has taken a preemptive step in securing a robust infrastructure for content production, marketing, and distribution within China. This is expected to accelerate the localization of our new IPs and open up tangible monetization opportunities based on China\u2019s fandom ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n Music Business Worldwide<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.musicbusinessworldwide.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" South Korean entertainment giant SM Entertainment reported a 19.3% YoY jump in consolidated revenue for the second quarter of 2025, driven by surging album sales and strong merchandise performance. The agency, home to K-pop acts such as RIIZE, NCT 127, aespa, and NCT DREAM, booked 302.9 billion South Korean won (approx. USD $218 million) in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1946697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1946696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/SM-Entertainments-Q2-2025-revenue-up-19-to-218M-CEO-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1946696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1946697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1946696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1946696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1946696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/files\/2025\/08\/Screenshot-2025-08-07-at-10.53.53\u202fAM-80x31.png)
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