BTS Returns: 5 Takeaways from HYBE’s Q1 Earnings Call on K-pop’s Future

BTS-nomics, overseas investment strategy, and the future of K-pop: 5 things we learned on HYBE’s Q1 earnings call

May 6, 2026 By Murray Stassen

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HYBE’s Q1 2026 earnings call on Wednesday (April 29) was dominated by the return of BTS. The company’s flagship group’s fifth studio album Arirang drove HYBE to record Q1 revenue of KRW 698.3 billion ($477m), up 39.5% YoY.

CEO Jason Jaesang Lee said the comeback had gone “beyond the so-called BTS-nomics enhancing the national brand of Korea,” and framed BTS as a “legendary brand” that would lead the global concert market “for a very long time.”

Beyond BTS, the earnings call touched on KATSEYE’s performance in the US, HYBE’s approach to overseas investment, and the growth of its Weverse platform.

Here’s what stood out…

1. HYBE sees BTS as a ‘legendary brand’ that will lead the global concert market ‘for a very long time’

HYBE’s CEO used the earnings call to frame BTS not just as a returning act, but as a long-term fixture of the global live music market.

Lee cited data from concert industry analytics firm Pollstar , noting that ” two thirds of the artists who have taken up the Top 20 spots in the global concert market over the past 5 years are legendary musicians like Imagine Dragons and Guns N’ Roses who debuted more than 20 years ago.”

“Based on this type of data, we are convinced that the success of BTS is not a short-term phenomenon, but the group will maintain their status as a legendary brand that can lead the global market for a very long time,” Lee said.

> “We are convinced that the success of BTS is not a short-term phenomenon.” Jason Jaesang Lee, HYBE

According to HYBE’s CEO, the Arirang album sold 3.98 million copies on its first day. The title track landed at No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 – BTS’s seventh Hot 100 No.1 – with all of the album’s songs entering the chart simultaneously.

“It is almost unprecedented as a non-English-speaking group in Billboard history that all the songs in one album entered Hot 100 chart simultaneously,” Lee said.

Lee also highlighted the album’s vinyl sales: 208,000 copies in the first week, which he described as “the highest weekly vinyl sales record for a group since 1991, when Luminate began compiling the data.”

The Gwanghwamun comeback concert, livestreamed on Netflix , recorded viewership of 18.4 million over 24 hours worldwide, according to HYBE. The video subsequently entered the Netflix weekly top 10 chart in 80 countries.

The BTS World Tour Arirang kicked off on April 9 and is “the largest scale world tour in K-pop history,” according to Lee, with 85 shows scheduled across 34 cities. The tour uses a 360-degree open-type stage design to eliminate blind spots and accommodate more fans.

2. HYBE’s 360-degree stage design is part of its strategy to defend margins as artist costs rise

A Goldman Sachs analyst noted “concerns that there will be an increase in artist fees [as BTS’s revenue contribution grows]”.

CEO Lee acknowledged the issue head-on: “As the essence of our business is music management and artist management, there seem to be concerns that the shifting of profit-sharing ratio between the company and the artists may have a direct impact on the gross profit margin. It does have an impact on our margin.”

However, Lee argued that HYBE has been actively working to mitigate that risk.

“If we manage our company in a way that the shifting of profit sharing ratio will have a direct and significant impact on our gross profit margin, it will mean that the company is not doing a good job in terms of defending its business from these types of risks,” he said.

Lee pointed to the 360-degree stage setup used on the BTS tour as a concrete example.

“The fact that we have the center stage means that we have eliminated blind spots, allowing [us] to accommodate more fans. In other words, while we have basically the same cost elements and the same special effects for these types of concerts, we’re able to add 4,000 or 5,000 more seats,” he said.

He also pointed to the share of revenue that comes from activities that do not directly involve artists, merchandise, licensing, content and fan platform sales, which accounted for 42% of total revenue in Q1, according to CFO Lee.

“We continue to put efforts to lower basic cost units as well as enhancing efficiency in sourcing. So all of these efforts are combined together to improve our gross profit trend,” the CEO said. “So we do not expect this trend to deteriorate any further in the future and we will only be able to improve.”

3. HYBE says KATSEYE is outselling top US artists on album sales – and changing the dynamics of the American market

KATSEYE , the girl group formed through HYBE’s joint venture with Universal Music Group ‘s Geffen Records, came up repeatedly on the call as evidence that HYBE’s localization strategy in the US is working.

Lee told analysts that KATSEYE has surpassed 32 million monthly listeners on Spotify , “which has exceeded what other leading K-pop groups have achieved so far.”

He noted that the group’s single PINKY UP , released in April, “reached 40 million streams in just 2 weeks” and that the group’s Coachella performance “garnered more than 6.3 million views after being uploaded on the official Coachella channel, exceeding that of Sabrina Carpenter, the headliner of this festival.”

But it was HYBE’s claims about album sales that were most pointed. Lee said the “combined cumulative sales of their first and second albums are nearly 1 million copies,” and, citing the preorder trend for the third EP due in August, predicted, “this new album will sell more than the previous two albums combined.”

He then drew a comparison: “Considering that average album sales by artists that have topped the Billboard 200 chart this year are around 190,000 copies, the exclusive album sales of KATSEYE far exceed those of leading local artists such as Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo.”

“These unprecedented results prove that HYBE’s localization strategy is now on a stable track, changing the dynamics of the US music market,” Lee concluded. “The album release and the world tour of KATSEYE scheduled for the second half of the year will drive an explosive growth in revenue in the US and further improve the bottom line of our North American business.”

KATSEYE also received three nominations at the 2026 American Music Awards. HYBE is now preparing a second girl group through its HYBE-Geffen partnership, with three confirmed members – Emily, Samara and Lexie – and a final member to be decided on May 12 via the audition show World Scout: The Final Piece , currently airing on Abema in Japan.

“We expect that this new group will become a key asset of our multi-home multi-genre strategy following the footsteps of KATSEYE to secure fandom from both North America and Japan,” Lee said.

4. HYBE’s overseas investment will be smaller in 2026 than 2025 – but market shifts could change that

HYBE’s international expansion has weighed on its bottom line in recent years. In FY 2025, the company posted record revenues of $1.86 billion but saw operating profit plunge 73% YoY as it spent on global expansion and new artist launches.

An analyst from HSBC asked for guidance on HYBE’s investment plans for 2026 and 2027, noting concerns that the company might increase overseas spending on the back of BTS’s earnings contribution.

CFO Lee said the total investment for 2026 “will be similar [to] last year” – and offered two reasons why.

“First of all, when we enter a new market and start our business, naturally, it will incur a larger amount of investment. But in doing so, we learn our lessons, and we accumulate our know-how, thereby being able to be more cost-effective in debuting the second and the third teams in that respective region,” he said.

> “Market situations may shift really quickly. So if we see that there is a right timing, then we will have to execute our plans accordingly.” Jason Jaesang Lee, HYBE

“Secondly, we already are producing meaningful results in the respective regions that we have entered. For instance, KATSEYE’s performance and results are far exceeding what we originally expected.”

CEO Lee, however, added a caveat. While the current plan calls for lower spending than 2025, he said HYBE maintains “a list of options and opportunities that we have been [eyeing] for different regions and different genres to wait for the right moment.”

He gave the example of HYBE’s expansion into India , which “took three years for us to ponder upon and look for – wait for the right moment.”

“For the US and also for Japan, there are certain genres and certain types of business that we’re looking at right now, but we’re not ready to execute on them right now because we do not see that the markets are ready [yet],” Lee said.

“However, as you know, market situations may shift really quickly. So if we see that there is a right timing, then we will have to execute our plans accordingly.”

5. Weverse hit a record 13.37 million MAU in Q1 – and HYBE says it’s attracting new users, not just returning ones

HYBE’s superfan platform Weverse, which turned profitable on a full-year basis last year , posted record activity in Q1.

Average monthly active users (MAU) hit 13.37 million , up 20% QoQ  from  11.2 million  in Q4 2025. (see below).

When asked by an HSBC analyst whether the upward MAU trend would continue, CEO Lee gave a detailed response.

“According to our tracking data, we have an increasing percentage of new users joining the Weverse platform. This means that the existing artists will continue to attract new fans and these new fans come to the Weverse platform to enjoy HYBE artists,” he said.

Lee also highlighted HYBE’s strategy of recruiting artists from outside the K-pop ecosystem. “For selective and strategic reasons, we have included BINI and SB19 from Southeast Asia. For instance, BINI has been really doing well and performed at Coachella and the fans of BINI continue to use Weverse services in various ways.”

On the question of why some Weverse services – such as the DM (direct message) function – are used by some artists and not others, Lee said this was by design rather than by default.

“DM is a great service model. It allows fans to directly communicate with their artists. However, this cannot be applied to all artists in the same manner because depending on the artists, depending on the labels and the team colors, their preferred ways of communicating with their fans may be very different,” he said.

“We need to cater to the characteristics of fans and artists and launch or apply services in the right manner, in the right time by communicating with the labels and management.”

The Weverse Con Festival, scheduled for June, has confirmed a lineup of 30 artist teams, the largest in the event’s history. The lineup will span generations and genres and feature both HYBE artists and external acts. Music Business Worldwide

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_Originally reported by [Music Business Worldwide](https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/bts-nomics-overseas-investment-strategy-and-the-future-of-k-pop-5-things-we-learned-on-hybes-q1-earnings-call/)._