
Bang Si-hyuk, HYBE chairman, seems on the quilt of Billboard Journal’s April 2023 difficulty. Courtesy of HYBE
Bang Si-hyuk, founder and chairman of the powerhouse Okay-pop leisure firm HYBE, has made Billboard’s annual rating of the music business’s prime executives for the fifth time.
Billboard launched its „Billboard Energy 100 Checklist“ for 2025 on Monday (U.S. native time). Within the „Leaderboard“ class of the highest 40 business figures, Bang and Scooter Braun, CEO of HYBE America, ranked No. 17.
Bang had beforehand been within the rankings in 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
In its accompanying blurb, Billlboard famous HYBE’s three way partnership with Geffen Data final 12 months, leading to an look by the lady group KATSEYE in entrance of over 7,000 followers at Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.
„The group’s promising begin is important to HYBE’s plans to export its South Korean method to artist improvement,“ Billboard mentioned.
Bang advised Billboard that there had been issues about whether or not there could be room within the U.S. marketplace for boy and lady teams, and added, „The success of the group’s first EP, SIS (Comfortable Is Sturdy), has confirmed that the market exists, and that’s our largest achievement.“
The five-track debut accounted for 115,000 U.S. equal album items in 2024, with roughly half coming from CD gross sales and the opposite half from 97 million on-demand streams, in line with Billboard.
Braun advised Billboard that HYBE’s Weverse social media/e-commerce enterprise held over 100 on-line live shows, bought 18 million items of merchandise and launched 18 Weverse albums that bought a cumulative 5.7 million items.
„With artists like Child LAROI, Ariana Grande, Megan Thee Stallion and Dua Lipa becoming a member of this 12 months, it is solely rising and can proceed to take action in 2025,“ Braun mentioned.
Bang and Braun checked in at No. 2 within the „Multisector“ class. Joseph Chang, co-CEO of the Seoul-based Kakao Leisure and CEO of Kakao Leisure America, ranked fifteenth in the identical class.
Billboard mentioned Kakao Leisure America labored with the British manufacturing agency Moon&Again to create „Made in Korea: The Okay-pop Expertise,“ a six-part sequence that aired on BBC in August and September.
The present adopted 5 boys from Britain present process Okay-pop coaching in South Korea, and so they turned dearALICE, releasing a soundtrack to the TV sequence in September. (Yonhap)