August 7, 2026
By Murray Stassen
SM Entertainment reported a 15.4%YoY rise in second-quarter revenue to KRW 349.6 billion ($233 million).
That’s according to the South Korea-based K-pop company’s latest quarterly report, published on Wednesday (August 5).
The growth was driven by SM‘s concert and merchandising/licensing businesses, along with revenue growth across its subsidiaries.
Operating profit rose 11.0% YoY to KRW 52.9 billion ($35.3 million), which SM attributed to revenue growth at both parent and subsidiary level and to lower operating costs.
Net income, however, fell 5.6%YoY to KRW 29.2 billion ($19.5 million).
SM said the decline was “primarily due to valuation losses on equity investments, impairment losses on investment assets, and higher income tax expenses.”
The company’s income tax expense jumped 52.8% YoY to KRW 12.8 billion, even as its pre-tax income rose 6.9%.
At parent-company level, revenue grew 9.2% YoYto KRW 240.6 billion ($160 million).
Concert revenue climbed 23.6% YoY to KRW 41.6 billion ($27.7 million), which SM said was “driven by the expansion of tours by our legacy IPs.”
SUPER JUNIOR wrapped its 20th-anniversary SUPER SHOW 10 tour with three encore shows in Seoul, while EXO played 19 concerts across 10 Asian cities on its sixth solo tour.
aespa,meanwhile, staged five shows across Jakarta and Japan on its SYNK: aeXIS LINE tour, TVXQ! performed twice at Nissan Stadium in Japan, and NCT WISH held five dates on its first concert tour.
Revenue from merchandising and licensing grew 22.0% YoYto KRW 77.9 billion ($51.9 million), which SM said reflected “ongoing IP-based monetization.”
The company tied that growth to pop-up events and concert merchandise, including a nine-day NCT 10th-anniversary pop-up in Seoul and an aespa pop-up run across seven cities.
Revenue from physical albums and digital music fell 8.2% YoY to KRW 90.9 billion ($60.6 million), which SM attributed to lower sales volumes from new releases.
New-album sales totaled 5.67 million copies in the quarter, down from 6.03 million a year earlier.
aespa‘s second full-length album, LEMONADE, sold 1.06 million copies and debuted at No. 9 on the Billboard 200.
RIIZE‘s second mini-album, II, sold 1.4 million copies, which SM said was the group’s fourth consecutive million-selling release.
NCT WISH‘s first full-length album, Ode to Love, sold 1.92 million copies, while girl group Hearts2Hearts sold 620,000 copies of its second mini-album, Lemon Tang.
The result extends a run of concert- and merchandise-led growth for SM, which posted record fourth-quarter revenue of KRW 319 billion ($219.4 million) in Q4 2025.
Second-quarter revenue was also up 25.3% from the KRW 279.1 billion the company generated in the first quarter of 2026.
Domestic rival HYBE, the company behind BTS, also posted a record quarter last month, with revenue more than doubling YoY to KRW 1.45 trillion ($967 million) on the back of BTS’s ARIRANG world tour.
Aggregate revenue across SM‘s subsidiaries rose 25.5% YoY to KRW 177.7 billion ($118 million), with their combined operating profit up61.2% YoY to KRW 13.0 billion.
Concert-production unit DREAM MAKER grew revenue 178.5% YoY to KRW 41.6 billion on more domestic shows, while actor-management firm KEYEAST grew 263.3% to KRW 10.7 billion on a new TV series.
Fan-platform subsidiary DearU, which SM consolidated onto its balance sheet in 2025, grew revenue15.7% YoYto KRW 23.4 billion on a subscription price increase.
aespa, meanwhile, will perform across Brazil, Chile, Peru, Mexico, the US and Canada in the second half of 2026 as part of its 2026-27 world tour, SYNK: COMPLæXITY.
NCT 127 will open its fifth tour, NEO CITY: SEOUL – THE REDLINE, in Seoul on September 18, while YESUNG marks the 10th anniversary of his solo debut with a seven-show Asia run in the fourth quarter.
Looking ahead, SM said it would “continue to balance the global expansion of our legacy artists with the stable growth of our rookie artists, while further strengthening our diversified IP portfolio to enable sustained value creation across our artist roster.”Music Business Worldwide
