Which K-pop company earned the most in 2025
Six companies behind the groups you follow have to publish their accounts by law. Here is what they said, ranked, with every term explained as it comes up. No advice, no opinion — just the numbers they filed and what they mean.
Read this first — three words, and you can read the whole page
- Sales
- Everything the company took in over the year — albums, concert tickets, merchandise, rights. It is the biggest number and the easiest one. Bigger sales does not mean the company kept more.
- Profit from the job
- What was left after paying for doing the job — staff, studios, tours, promotion. If this is a minus, the company spent more on the work than the work brought in. (Accountants call this operating profit.)
- What was left at the end
- The final line, after everything else — taxes, interest, and gains or losses on things the company owns, like a stake in another company. A company can do fine at the job and still finish the year down here. That is exactly what happened to one of these six. (Accountants call this net profit.)
Ranking 1 — who sold the most
Won, in hundreds of millions. Artists is how many we can link to each company.
| # | Company | Sales 2025 | Year before | Artists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | HYBE | 26,499 | 22,556 | 94 |
| 2 | SM Entertainment | 11,749 | 9,897 | 133 |
| 3 | JYP Entertainment | 8,219 | 6,018 | 72 |
| 4 | YG Entertainment | 5,454 | 3,649 | 109 |
| 5 | FNC Entertainment | 1,024 | 862 | 48 |
| 6 | Cube Entertainment | 872 | 1,026 | 38 |
HYBE is 1st and sold more than the next two companies put together.
Ranking 2 — who grew the fastest
How much more they sold than the year before. A small company can top this one and often does.
| # | Company | Grew by |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | YG Entertainment | +49.4% |
| 2 | JYP Entertainment | +36.6% |
| 3 | SM Entertainment | +18.7% |
| 4 | FNC Entertainment | +18.7% |
| 5 | HYBE | +17.5% |
| 6 | Cube Entertainment | -15% |
The company that sold the most is not the company that grew the most. Two different questions, two different answers.
Ranking 3 — who actually kept money
What was left at the very end of the year. A minus means the company finished down.
| # | Company | Kept at the end | Changed? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SM Entertainment | 3,594 | — |
| 2 | JYP Entertainment | 1,606 | — |
| 3 | YG Entertainment | 537 | — |
| 4 | Cube Entertainment | -59 | was up last year, down this year |
| 5 | FNC Entertainment | -118 | — |
| 6 | HYBE | -2,544 | — |
This is the ranking that flips. The company at the top of Ranking 1 is at the bottom of this one. It sold the most and finished the year with less than it started.
Its sales rose and it still earned money from the job itself. Something outside the job — the kind of thing that lives on the last line — took more than that away. The filing gives us the number and not the reason, so we are not going to invent a reason for you.
One more way to look at it — money per artist
Sales divided by how many artists we can link to the company. It is a division, not a judgement: a company with fewer artists looks bigger per head automatically.
| Company | Artists | Sales per artist |
|---|---|---|
| HYBE | 94 | 282 |
| SM Entertainment | 133 | 88 |
| JYP Entertainment | 72 | 114 |
| YG Entertainment | 109 | 50 |
| FNC Entertainment | 48 | 21 |
| Cube Entertainment | 38 | 23 |
Artist counts come from our market value per artist page, where they are counted from public records rather than from contracts. They are a floor, not a full roster.
One company we could not include
CJ E&M — we have no 2025 accounts for it in the records we hold, so it is not in any ranking above. We are naming it rather than quietly leaving it out, and we are not putting a zero where we have nothing.
Questions people actually ask
Which K-pop company makes the most money?
HYBE sold the most in 2025 — ₩26,499 hundred million, which is more than the next two put together. But selling the most is not the same as keeping the most: HYBE finished the year with less money than it started, while three smaller companies finished with more.
Is HYBE bigger than SM and JYP?
Yes, by sales. HYBE sold ₩26,499 hundred million in 2025 — about 1.3 times SM and JYP added together. HYBE also has the most artists on our count.
Did K-pop companies do well in 2025?
5 of the 6 companies we can read sold more than the year before. That is the short answer. 3 of 6 kept money at the end of the year and 3 did not, so "the industry did well" is true of the sales line and not true of every company.
What does operating profit mean?
It is what a company earned from doing its actual job — selling albums, tickets, merchandise and rights — after paying the costs of doing that job. It leaves out things that happen on the side, like the value of a stake in another company going up or down.
Why did the biggest company lose money if its sales went up?
Because the loss did not come from the job. Its sales rose and it still earned money from the job itself, but something outside the job took more than that away. The filing gives the number and not the reason, so we are not going to guess the reason for you.
Where these numbers come from
Every company listed on a Korean exchange must publish its accounts once a year. We took them from DART, the government system where those filings are posted, and the market values from the government data portal for 20260908. We did not adjust anything. Built 10 September 2026, 10:53 KST.
The rankings are by size, not by merit — a bigger company is not a better one, and none of this says anything about the music. This is not investment advice. If you want the accountants' version, with the ratios and both dates on every row, it is on our sister site: Korea valuation tape.
What we wrote from this data
- Five of six listed K-pop labels grew in 2025. The biggest one lost ₩254bn
HYBE sold 17.5% more than the year before and still reported a net loss 85 times larger. SM, JYP and YG all grew revenue and profit. Filed figures, in English, with the filing receipts named.
10 September 2026