In 1964, an English boy band called The Beatles made its television debut and changed the face of the music industry forever. More than 50 years later, another foreign import is doing it again. Meet BTS, a seven-member South Korean boy band from Seoul.
The band has sold millions of albums and is one of the most-watched artists on YouTube. Not to mention, their stadium shows around the globe have quickly sold out. It's estimated that BTS is worth about $3.6 billion per year to the economy of South Korea, and more than $1 billion in consumer exports. The idols, as South Koreans call its megastars, were the reason that one in every 13 foreign tourists visited the country in 2017. BTS even partnered with Visit Seoul on a tourism campaign.
Namsan Tower and Bangko Bridge, which were featured in videos for the campaign, have become hotspots for tourists. Should BTS maintain their popularity, they could generate $37 billion in economic value for South Korea over the next 10 years. So how did BTS break the mold in South Korea and jump to the top of the charts in the U.S.? BTS wasn't an overnight sensation.
Debuting in 2013, the K-pop group took its name from a Korean expression, 방탄소년단, which translates to Bulletproof Boy Scouts. Although the acronym is since morphed to stand for Beyond the Scene, a nod to how connected the band is to its loyal fans known as ARMY. So what is K-pop anyway? K-pop is short for Korean pop or Korean popular music. It's a music genre that blends together electronic, hip-hop, pop, rock, R&B, and even rap.
The genre can be traced back to the early 90s, but rose to popularity in the 2000s. It has since grown into a $5 billion global industry. Typically, K-pop groups have gained a foothold in South Korea and throughout Asia before trying to expand to a global audience. But when they did travel abroad, these trips were actually detrimental to many of their careers because it ripped them out of the spotlight in their home country.
So previous generation of K-pop idols career very much depended on TV as a platform, whereas BTS used social media to really kind of make themselves available and visible. And that... can be done anywhere in the world.
But BTS did things a little differently. The boys of BTS were signed to South Korean entertainment company Big Hit Entertainment, who had conducted the auditions that brought them together. The group spent several years refining their dance moves and sound before debuting in 2013. Two band members, Jimin and V, hailed from the Korean Arts High School in Seoul, a private educational institution that has many K-pop idols as alumni. The school closed in February 2019, however, as it was unable to keep up with new and strict laws and decided to stop taking students.
Other performing arts high schools, sometimes called K-pop schools, remain. Here, young South Korean students practice their dance moves and polish their vocal skills. The boys hail from cities and towns from all over South Korea and were brought together through a series of auditions in 2010 and 2011. Big Hit Entertainment was on the brink of bankruptcy in 2007. However, it wasn't until BTS'launch that Big Hit's financials really turned around.
By 2018, the company's profits soared 97% from the year prior, hauling in around $57 million. Revenue rose 132% from 2017 to 2018, and the company's net income rose 105% year over year. Much of this growth was due to how Big Hit first marketed BTS to the public.
BTS kind of circumvented traditional model of debuting on TV music shows and gaining visibility. And rather, they took a route of reaching out to global fandom through social media directly. So it is a band that gained fame and popularity overseas even before they became superstars in Korea itself.
The band was given full control of their social media presence. and were encouraged to live blog their practices and daily lives. Social media has been playing a tremendous role not only in the Korean wave, but also in the exchange and propagation of culture.
In fact, Korean wave, including K-pop, K-beauty, K-food, movies, and games, is a worldwide trend now because of the social media. And the U.S. market is no exception. In recent years, the millennials spend enormous time on social media, And a massive cultural content is being consumed, especially the expansion of Korean wave on YouTube is the most powerful driving force.
Notably, none of the band members have their own individual accounts on social media. There's just one band account, meaning the group's fan following is not the only one. is concentrated on one account per platform.
On Twitter, the band has more than 20 million followers. On Instagram, more than 19 million. And YouTube has just over 20 million as of July 2019. This massive fan base isn't concentrated in one country or region. It's global. And that has been a major factor in BTS'success.
Their record label even gave the boys latitude to create their own solo music. BTS first arrived in America in 2014. to be part of a South Korean reality TV show called BTS American Hustle Life, which aired on a South Korean network. The show centered around the band living in L.A.
while learning more about Western culture and rap music from industry veterans Warren G and Coolio. Later that year, BTS became the youngest artist to play L.A.'s KCON, an annual festival that features the biggest K-pop superstars. This performance garnered the group a lot of attention.
In 2017, BTS received its first Billboard Music Award for Top Social Artist. Nominees are artists that fans engage with the most on social media. The first win at the Billboard Music Awards in 2017 was a total shock to the majority of US media because BTS captured the top social artists overtaking superstars such as Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez.
The Beatles were from Liverpool, not from a rich background. BTS is very similar. Their daily lives have been delivered to fans every day. They show that their lives are not much different from ours.
They are the same as us. They are real. Otherwise, they would never be able to gain this level of popularity.
The band also gained notoriety for their show-stopping choreography and highly stylized music videos. In May 2019 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, nearly 100,000 people showed up to watch the band perform, shelling out between $55 and $250 per ticket. Sales from the two shows reached more than $14 million.
Earlier that month in Chicago, attendance was around 88,000 at Soldier Field. Over the two performances, the band hauled in $13.3 million in ticket sales. For comparison, Taylor Swift also played at Soldier Field, earning $14.5 million for two performances in front of 105,000 fans each night.
Swift also played at MetLife Stadium, earning $22 million for three performances, playing to crowds of over 165,000. In 2018, BTS earned its first platinum certification for its song Mic Drop and its first gold album for Love Yourself Answer. Answer debuted number one on the Billboard 200 chart.
and was recognized as the best-selling album ever on South Korea's Gaon Chart. Their songs are not about love or broken hearts. It is about identity, confidence, and loving oneself. It is socially conscious message. That's why we call their music the music of this generation.
This messaging is especially important, as the K-pop industry has become mired in scandal in recent years. In early 2019, a number of prominent K-pop idols were named as being part of an online group that shared sexually explicit videos of women, filmed without their knowledge or consent. Many K-pop fans in Korea are discontent with labeling BTS as K-pop acts because they think BTS is more than K-pop and beyond K-pop. Particularly at this moment when K-pop world in general is mired in very severe scandal involving sex trade, rape, allegations and illegal drug sales and whatnot.
BTS has partnered with UNICEF to stage campaigns against violence towards children and teens around the world. Last November, BTS launched the Love Myself campaign with UNICEF, building on our belief that true love first begins with loving myself. We've been partnering with UNICEF's End Violence program to protect children and young people all over the world from violence. And our fans have become a major part of this campaign with their action and with their enthusiasm. We truly have the best fans in the world.
In 2019, BTS continued to break records. The group was the first K-pop band ever to perform on Saturday Night Live. The band's most recent album, Map of the Soul Persona, had more than 3 million pre-orders internationally, and upon release went to number one on iTunes album charts in 89 different countries.
Unlike other K-pop stars who mainly target Southeast Asia or Chinese fans, BTS has targeted the U.S. market directly. The band has collaborated with a number of music heavyweights that are popular in America, including Nicki Minaj, Ed Sheeran and Halsey. And BTS isn't just taking the music industry by storm. Toys, apparel and cosmetic companies are all benefiting from the band's global fame.
BTS has partnered with Converse, Coca-Cola, Puma and Hyundai in the form of clothing lines and advertisements. Not to mention BTS has collaborated with Funko on a set of seven Funko Pops. All the social media engagement. engagement we've had with any property this year, BTS is number one.
And that's ahead of Game of Thrones, ahead of Avengers Endgame. And so that's a surprise to us. And it's a huge win. And we got a little bit of how powerful the BTS brand could be at New York Toy Fair when we started to see that that was our number one, you know, Instagram tweeted, Facebook item for the show.
So we're seeing diversity across who and what. The K-pop fans are, and I think that's one of the reasons why the products are resonating at different retailers. I mean, you can't get any more diverse from Barnes & Noble to Hot Topic to Amazon. Three very diverse retailers, and all three are doing exceedingly well with the BTS brand. It's clear, however, that BTS isn't just a passing fad.
The Love Yourself Speak Yourself tour has reportedly made more than $100 million in ticket sales, averaging about $4.5 million per show. The group has been prolific about releasing new music. Since 2014, BTS has released six studio albums and six EPs.
For comparison, the Beatles released 12 studio albums and 13 EPs between 1962 and 1970. Not to mention, BTS is the first band since the Beatles to have three albums hit the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100. spot in America in less than a year.