South Korea-based leisure large HYBE’s annual revenues surpassed the one billion greenback mark for the second consecutive yr in 2022.

In accordance with a brand new investor submitting, HYBE’s annual revenues grew 41.6% YoY to 1.77 trillion South Korea Received.

That complete income haul for FY 2022 converts to USD $1.37 billion at annual common change charges.

The corporate’s adjusted EBITDA in 2022 was 328.7 billion South Korea Received (USD $254.4m).

HYBE, the house of Okay-pop stars BTS, experiences that its key income driver in 2022 was its ‘Artist Direct Involvement’ enterprise section, which grew by 82.6% to 973.8 billion South Korea Received ($753.8m).

The corporate’s second-largest income in 2022 was its Artist In-Direct Involvement’ enterprise section, which generated 804.1 billion South Korea Received ($622m) final yr, up 9.7% YoY.

This enterprise line sees HYBE use the identify and likeness of its artists similar to BTS with out requiring the band’s energetic participation.

In FY 2022, this enterprise section generated almost double the income it generated throughout the first pandemic yr in 2020, when it generated 424.2 billion South Korea Received. It was cited as a key issue behind the corporate’s robust efficiency that yr.

These Artist In-Direct Involvement’ actions turned HYBE’s most important income driver in each quarter of 2021, together with Q1 (ending March 31), Q2 (the three months to the tip of June), Q3 (the three months to the tip of September) and This autumn (ending December 31).

It was additionally the corporate’s largest income driver throughout the FY 2021, producing 733 billion KRW ($640m at annual common change charges) that yr – up 72.8% YoY.

BTS, HYBE’s key income generator, revealed in June that they’d be taking a break to pursue solo tasks, with BTS member Jin beginning his 18-month army service in December.

BTS-related tasks that didn’t require the band’s direct involvement final yr included cell recreation BTS Island: Within the SEOM, which launched in June and is accessible in six totally different languages: Korean, Japanese, English, Chinese language (each simplified and conventional) and Spanish. It racked up over 7 million cumulative customers as of November 26.

Album gross sales have been HYBE’s third largest income supply in 2022, rising 47% YoY to 553.8 billion South Korea Received (USD $428.7m).

Live performance revenues soared 470.1% YoY to 258.1 billion South Korea Received ($199.8m) following the complete return of the stay music business, versus 45.2 billion South Korea Received in 2021 when concert events hadn’t but returned to scale because the world was coming was out of the pandemic.

Elsewhere, HYBE’s Fan Membership revenues, derived from its WeVerse fan platform grew 47.1% YoY, to 67.1 billion South Korea Received ($51.9m).

HYBE additionally breaks down its monetary outcomes by geographic location, reporting that 32% of revenues have been generated in North America, the corporate’s second-largest market.

South Korea was HYBE’s largest revenue-generating market in 2022, accounting for 33% of the corporate’s general revenues final yr (see beneath).

HYBE notes that North America solely accounted for 9% of its annual revenues in 2017, whereas Korea accounted for 72% that yr.

Japan was HYBE’s third-biggest market in 2022, with a 28% share of the corporate’s complete income. The market accounted for 14% of HYBE’s revenues in 2017.

HYBE’s FY and This autumn 2022 outcomes arrive two weeks after the corporate’s US division, HYBE America, led by CEO Scooter Braun, acquired Atlanta rap powerhouse QC Media Holdings or High quality Management.

HYBE highlights the corporate’s key artists in its investor presentation, together with Lil Child, Migos, Lil Yachty, in addition to introducing the corporate’s management, Chief Government Officer Pierre Pierre “P” Thomas and Chief Working Officer Kevin “Coach Okay” Lee.

In the present day’s information additionally arrives amidst a deepening rift between HYBE and rival Okay-pop firm SM Leisure.

Two weeks in the past, HYBE, the corporate behind BTS, acquired a 14.8% stake in SM Leisure (behind stars like NCT, EXO and Aespa) from SM’s founder Lee Soo Man, in a deal value 422.8 billion South Korean received (approx. USD $334.5 million).

Consequently, HYBE turned SM’s largest shareholder.

As reported by All Okay-Pop, following its acquisition of Lee Soo Man’s SM Leisure shares, HYBE revealed in a submitting that it meant to up its 14.8% stake in SM to round 40% of the corporate.

HYBE reportedly deliberate to take action by buying one other 25.2% of SM Leisure’s shares for a complete of 1.14 trillion South Korea Received (USD $900 million USD) from minority shareholders, launching a young supply to take action.

SM Leisure’s present administration, nonetheless, have publicly expressed opposition to this plan.

Over the weekend, Jang Cheol Hyuk, the CFO of SM Leisure, printed a video on YouTube during which he slammed HYBE’s current takeover bid, arguing that it could result in the latter firm’s monopolization of the Okay-Pop business.

All KRW-USD foreign money conversions on this report have been calculated on the common annual charge printed by the IRS in the USA.Music Enterprise Worldwide