Girls Generation, Super Junior top 2011 earners for SM Entertainment

By JONATHAN HICAP 

K-pop groups Girls Generation and Super Junior are the top earning artists under SM Entertainment.

In a financial disclosure filed with Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service, SM Entertainment revealed that Girls Generation earned 21.73 billion won (P829 million) for the first three quarters of 2011.

The girls were followed by Super Junior, which earned 13.83 billion won (P527.6 million) for the same period. Third is TVXQ with 11.723 billion won (P447.22 million), followed by SHINee with 5.495 billion (P209.63 million) and girl group f(x) with 3.577 billion won (P136.45 million). Revenues for the five groups totaled 56.36 billion won (P1.25 billion won).

Girls Generation concentrated on their Japanese and Korean activities last year. The girls released “The Boys” album, which became the bestselling album in Korea for 2011, selling about 385,000 copies.  

On the other hand, Super Junior released their “Mr. Simple” album last year.

SM Entertainment holds 30.4 percent of the music market in South Korea followed by YG Entertainment (8.9 percent), which manages Big Bang and 2NE1; FNC Music (6.6 percent), whose artists include FT Island and CNBlue; C-JeS Entertainment (6.2 percent), which manages boy band JYJ; Cube Entertainment (BEAST, 4Minute, G.NA), 5.2 percent; KeyEast (Kim Hyun Joong), 4.3 percent; JYP Entertainment (2PM, Wonder Girls, miss A), 3.6 percent; Loen Entertainment (IU, Sunny Hill), 3.6 percent; and others, 31.1 percent.

In terms of digital comprehensive ranking for 2011 which includes online streaming, downloads, BGM and mobile sales, YG Entertainment is No. 1 with a market share of 13.2 percent while SM Entertainment is fifth with 4.4 percent share.

SM Entertainment earned a net income of 24.44 billion won (P932.4 million) last year. Sales amounted to 86.4 billion won (P3.29 billion).