Strong album sales from K-pop groups Seventeen, Tomorrow X Together and New Jeans helped Korean music label HYBE enjoy record revenue of 2.18 trillion won ($1.67 billion), up 22.6%, in 2023 , according to the company's latest earnings report.
HYBE's album sales by Korean artists nearly doubled to 43.6 million last year from 22.2 million in 2022, while album sales accounted for 44.6% of total revenue, up from 31.1% the previous year. In Korea, Seventeen led the way with 15.9 million album sales (HYBE's earnings release cited numbers from Circle Chart, which tracks sales in Korea only). Tomorrow X Together sold 6.5 million albums and NewJeans sold 4.3 million albums.
Streaming revenue was boosted by the company's acquisition of Atlanta-based hip-hop label Quality Control in February 2023. Revenue from HYBE's US labels — Quality Control as well as Big Machine Label Group — grew 70% in 150 billion won ($114.9 million ) and accounted for nearly half of HYBE's streaming revenue growth for the year. Streaming revenue from the company's Korean labels outside of Korea also performed well last year, rising 102 percent to 107 billion won ($81.9 million). In Korea, streaming revenue from these labels only rose 64%, however, to 41 billion won ($31.4 million).
Concert revenue rose 39.1% to 359.1 billion won ($275 million) and accounted for 16.5% of total revenue, up from 14.5% in 2022. Much of this was due to volume, as HYBE had 125 shows from seven artists in 2023 compared to 78 shows from four artists touring in 2022.
Most other sources of revenue declined year over year. Advertising and impressions fell 12.3 percent to 141.9 billion won ($109 million). Merchandise and licenses fell 17.7 percent to 325.6 billion won ($249 million). Content fell 15.1 percent to 289.9 billion won ($222 million). One bright spot was fan clubs, which rose 35.9 percent to 91.2 billion won ($70 billion).
Companywide gross profit improved 19.7% to 1 trillion won ($773 million), lower than the 22.6% growth rate in revenue, as cost of sales rose 25.2% (gross profit is sales less cost of sales). Selling, general and administrative expenses rose only 17.7%, however, which helped operating profit improve 24.9% to 295.8 billion won ($227 million). Net profit rose 288% to 186.5 billion won ($143 million).
Korea's share of HYBE's revenue increased from 33% in 2022 to 36% in 2023. Japan's share of revenue also increased, from 28% to 31%. North America dropped from 32% to 26% despite the addition of Quality Control.
Social media platform Weverse ended the year with 10.1 million monthly active users (MAUs) in the fourth quarter, down from an all-time high of 10.6 million MAUs in the third quarter, but well above the 8.5 million MAUs in the fourth quarter of 2022 Weverse ended the year with 122 artist communities, up from 71 at the end of 2022.
