[News] Big 3 Entertainment Agencies: How did they fare in 2011?

YG Entertainment's Yang Hyun Suk must be pretty smug. It seems he's managing his agency pretty well.

According to a KOSDAQ report revealing the 2011 financial reports for the big three agencies (SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, & YG Entertainment), SM came out on top in terms of annual sales. Housing the likes of Girls Generation and Super Junior, the agency broke past the 100 billion won mark for the first time for any entertainment label. However, in terms of profits, YG, led by Yang Hyun Suk, had a operating profit ratio of 24.5%. This was more than SM's 18.9%.

SM's 2011 sales sat at 109.9 billion won, a 27% increase from 2010. From this figure, 61.9 billion won was from domestic sales, 33.6 billion won from Japan, and 14.3 billion from other countries. Compared to 2010, SM's domestic sales increased by 27.9% or roughly 17.3 billion won. Japan's sales fell by about 3 billion won, while sales in other countries jumped by 64.3%, or roughly 9.2 billion won.

YG Entertainment saw its total sales figure come in at about 62.5 billion won last year. This was a 39.7% increase from 2010 when it brought in about 44.8 billion won. Though the numbers may be significantly lower than SM, the growth rate was about 10% higher.

More than just sales though, YG's operating profit was calculated to be about 15.2 billion won, a 36.9% increase from 2010. Net profit was approximately 11.7 billion won, that was a 42% increase from the previous year. In comparison to SM's total sales, that was about 47.4 billion won short, yet YG's operating profit was about 5.5 billion won more. This has highlighted Yang's excellent management and business skills.

By region, YG's Japan sales jumped four-fold, with 2010's rought 3.5 billion won figure jumping to 12.9 billion won last year. With YG artists expected to be even more active this year, sales outside of Korea will surely only go up from here.

For the remaining Big 3 agency, JYP, the numbers weren't as high. However, it's important to note a label's success cannot only be judged by the accounting books.

One thing to note is that there are actually two agencies under the name JYP: JYP which is home to Park Jin Young, miss A, and Rain & JYP Ent which manages 2PM, 2AM, and the Wonder Girls.

The following figures is for JYP Ent, which is not a comprehensive report for all JYP's artists (i.e. under JYP). Moreover, with JYP Ent having split off late June in 2011, the report applies to only a six-month period from July 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011.

JYP Ent earned roughly 9.9 billion won in total sales, though there was an operating loss of about 24.7 billion won. Related officials explained the red figures, "The loss increased last year because of higher sales management costs and the expenses of investments made to J.Tunes Entertainment.

By region, JYP Ent's sales figure was divided: 3.9 billion won from domestic sales, 5.9 billion from outside Korea.


Source: KBS World Sharing is sexy