Girls’ Generation, Super Junior, TVXQ and other SM Entertainment singers have been garnering attention after their sales numbers from the past three years were revealed.
According to the Financial Supervisory Service’s data analysis retrieval and transfer system, Girls’ Generation made 17.003 billion won in 2009, 30.044 billion won in 2010, and 21.737 billion won up to the third quarter of 2011. Up until the third quarter of 2011, they had recorded sales of 68.811 billion won. Including the fourth quarter, which was when “The Boys” was released, it would be well over 70 billion won and over 100 billion won if it included sales from their Japan promotions.
Girls’ Generation’s 68.811 billion won revenue makes up 42% of the 161.954 billion won earned within the last three years by SM Entertainment’s top five artists, Super Junior, TVXQ, SHINee, f(x) and Girls’ Generation.
Sources: http://star.mk.co.kr
Translated by: ch0sshi@soshified
Edited by: letaengbutt@soshified
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nice one.. but this is just the revenue from Korea, if you add another revenue from Japan, US and europe, it will be bigger. I don’t know exactly the revenue pertains to what but according to the article this is just from selling albums. for me, it doesn’t matter if the girls have fair percentage or not, as long as they are feeling grateful with what they have, happy and healthy, I am happy.. hihi.. but I believe SMent gives a fair percentage to each group that maybe it’s not just as simple as 25% or 30% or 20% of NI from SNSD’s revenue. I don’t think the contract is that simple because there are many circumstances.
but this is for sure, SM doesn’t give SNSD 20 or 25 or 30% of their profit (NI) to the girls because that means SNSD have 25% ownership of SMent.. maybe 25% of NI from SNSD’s revenue only..
Thats not enough, we need to give them more
OMG GG YOU ROCK
SNSD is going to take over the world! SNSD JJANG! ^___^
OMGOODNESS haha they really AREa powerhouse :D haha how many mil is that? well they kinda deserve this for all their insane activities..stay well and keep strong girls…SNSD fighting!
daebak
I could be totally off, but I’ll attempt to approximate how much money the girls have made the last three years.
Assuming the profit margin for SM entertainment is about 30%, and the girls recieve the industry average, which is about 25% of the profit, and if sales = $100mm last 3yrs, then they have earned $100mm*(0.3)*(0.25)= $7.5mm from SM alone.
The girls also make money from endorsements. I don’t know exactly how many, but let’s assume 10 endorsements per year, and the contract per endorsement at $1mm, then they’d make $10mm per year, and $30mm in past three years. What’s nice about endorsements is that the girls get to keep most of the money.
Also, there are the private appearances (hang-sa’s). The girls were paid $40,000 when they performed at Hanyang University last year. They probably made more when they performend at events such as Pyeong Chang festival and Angel Price. And, there are probably many more private hang-sa events that us fans never get to hear about. So, if they appeared at about 15 hang-sa events per year, they would have made somewhere close to $2mm the past 3 years. I think this is a very conservative estimate, but they also get to keep most of this money.
Then, there are the television appearances, but the amount people make from television shows is very small. I don’t know about dramas and musicals. Also, don’t know how much they make from magazine photoshoots. So, I’m gonna just gonna ignore these.
So in sum, $7.5mm+$30mm+$2mm = ~$40mm or $4.4mm per member if you split it 9 ways.
And Yoona and maybe Seohyun should make a little more because they have their own individual endorsements.
i think agencies take a lot more than merely 30%. an idol’s contract is commonly highly skewed towards the agency due to the fact that they provide idols with training/room and board and other miscellaneous items prior to their debut.
maybe they’ve renegotiated their contracts since debut but if not, i think they’d be getting closer to 3-40%, then split that 9 ways. as you can see, the girls don’t end up getting paid that much. despite all of that, the girls should still be relatively well off right now.
SM takes 30% off revenues as profit. That’s huge. The girls get ~25% of SM’s profits. The exact numbers may be wrong, but I don’t think I’m far off. You can find SM’s exact % profit margin & cost structure on their income statement. Please look it up.
SONES do anything for our girls, a few billion won, yeah, no problem.
Go Girls go!!!
SONES always here!!!!!
100 billion won?? O___O *speechless*
im happy their getting paid well ^^
They deserve it.
GO GG
<3
I always hate being that guy when it comes to these
articles about sales and profit regarding the girls and
their label, but as with any company i always worry
that the girls are receiving their fair share. i certainly
hope they are. i hope sm is not taking advantage of a
group of girls that have basically built up their company
over the past five years. although, i feel a bit more
comfortable that the girls get their share with all this
talk of jessica having tons of thousand dollar purses. HAHA!
around $61 mil
:O whoa!
snsd increases south korea’s real gdp!! good job, girls, on keeping the economy up!!
wow, that’s a huge achievement :D
This must only include a small portion of the total revenue. 70 billion won is $62MM USD which is very small considering these are revenue numbers. According to Wikipedia the girls have sold at least 3.4 million albums. At a conservative $15 each that’s $51MM USD right there. So maybe these are just CD sales numbers. Once you include tours, CFs, products, licensing, etc. I would expect this to be $500MM or higher.
Anyone trying to figure out how much the girls have made from this: there is no way of doing that at all. These numbers are gross revenue, not earnings, and it’s not even clear what the gross revenue covers. The way the story is written it’s actually misleading because it assumes this is all of the revenue they’ve made which is definitely not true.
Yea, I was looking at how much that was in USD as well and that seems very low. But cds are probably cheaper in Korea? 15 USD or 16830 WON seems high for a cd, especially considering cost of living. I’m sure they still have made more than that 70 billion won figure that is being reported. Hopefully they are all getting there fair cut.
The Power of 9. <3
Wait until the dollars, euros, and pesos start pouring in when they release their English international album…
I enjoy reading this stuff on the business aspects of the idoling industry, because it just points out how it comes down to the money. When a company like SM invests in talent–like the SNSD girls trained for years and years before their debut, and between all the coaches, language teachers, etc., etc., I understand the investment per talent can run into the millions. So let’s say you assume that SM spent around $1.3M per SNSD member before they even debuted. Already they’ve sunk about $12M. I did a simple IRR on their potential cash flow; if they can achieve gross margin of 25% (that’s after paying EVERYTHING–and I think 25% is actually too high a number), then assuming that SNSD’s life span extends out to around 2016, then they’ll achieve a return of about 19% on their investment of $12M. Changing one little thing affects a lot: if the gross margin changes to 20%, then IRR drops to 13%. If you extend the life span out, then your return obviously increases. Also, if SM actually invested less in each girl, then the return rate starts looking really good. But if you look at the revenue trends, from 2010 to 2011, their revenue is basically flat, so have they peaked in their earning potential? That’s why, SM is really trying to push them into new markets, like the US. But to do so is going to take serious $$$ and that will cut into profitability. Those SM guys are pretty shrewd, so at the end of the day, our beloved girls are just racehorses on a very competitive track. What a tough business!
I read an article awhile back where SM claimed they spent 2-5 million per member getting them to market, that would put a big hurt on the bottom line you set up. The clothing/staff budget per year has got to be over a million each also. What is not mentioned is how much the gov is kicking back because of the promote Korea aspect. Nevertheless i would be stunned if the girls are not all multi millionaires just from the Japan sales numbers.
Seriously? $2.5MM per…okay, if I run that, they’re sunk investment is $22.5MM. I come up with, to date, a negative IRR (at 25% gross profit); even if they extend their careers to, say, 2018–they have to bring in strong 10-figure revenues just to make a single digit IRR. This is where, if someone came to me and said, “hey, do you want to invest $2MM in what we think will be the next big act in Kpop/Jpop”, I would be think that I’m better off giving the money to a private equity firm and make an “easy” 12% on asset backed securities; you would have to convince me that the act will have a life of more than 10 yrs, otherwise I know my returns will be poor. It’s a tough business. I’ll bet SM is just sifting off as much cash as they can, while they can–and if sales start plummeting, they’ll shut down a group like SNSD very quickly because their overhead costs are very high. That would support why they do these long-term “slave” contracts. You have to stick the girls on a contract with a modest salary (compared to what the group will earn at their peak), and leash them for a long time because you need that much time to recoup your investment.
Rand_Caracarn,
Hmm I think 2-5 million per member is unrealistic. Perhaps, 2-5 million per group ??
On the otherhand, SM’s stock price rose like 1000% the past 3 yrs, and if the push in SM’s stock prices are the result to its earnings, then SM has made serious amount of money the past 3yrs.
Soshisuju: if you assume the stock price was soley tied to earnings, then I would agree with you. But stock price, at the end, is the perception of the company value. Apple stock trades at close to $600 per share and their market cap is almost $550B. Exxon has a market cap of just over $400B. But Exxon dwarfs Apple in business size, though the market says Apple is worth almost $150B more. At the end the best way to figure things out is to look up their annual report. But I was looking at just the sub-business of SNSD and the whole business of investing in the idol business. It’s very risky and even for SNSD–who’s currently riding high, you know that SM has to sustain as much revenue for as long as they can to recoup their investment–otherwise from an ROI/IRR perspective, it doesn’t pencil out. To your earlier post, if SM does give the group 25% of the gross profit, that actually drops SM’s margin to 22.5% (75% of 30%) and their IRR is barely breakeven. So if I were SM management, as a businessman, I would say, “look, I’m investing $X millions in you, not knowing if you’ll sell one CD or DVD when you debut, that’s why I only give you X% of revenues. But with endorsements and other side-jobs you generate because of the popularity you cultivate individually, you can make come really good money, in addition to what you make from SM.” From a business perspective, I totally understand why they would try to put slave contracts in place.
Holy Jesus! That….that is a pretty penny! Go GG go!
daebak!
wah…!!
It’s fantastic achievment.
We proud as SONE because the Professionalism of So Nyuh Shi Dae
well I hope the producers, engineers and composers were payed well..