SM Entertainment's Revenue Rose 9.2%. Its Profit Fell Almost a Fifth.
SM Entertainment's standalone revenue rose 9.2% year-over-year to 240.6 billion won - roughly $174 million - in the second quarter of 2026, the company said Wednesday. Over the same three months, standalone operating profit fell 4.6% and net profit dropped 18.1%, a split the company's announcement didn't explain in detail.
SM attributed the revenue growth to its artists' global concert tours, continued expansion of its merchandise and licensing business, and improved earnings from its subsidiaries. Concert revenue, appearance fees and merchandise sales all grew during the quarter, the company said, without detailing what drove the profit decline running in the opposite direction. The company's first-quarter report, released in May, had shown revenue and profit moving in the same direction - both up double digits - making the second quarter's split between rising revenue and falling profit a shift worth watching rather than a continuation of an existing pattern.
The same release doubled as a release calendar. SM confirmed its third-quarter lineup includes NCT 127's full-length album "Blingy," a solo EP from SHINee's Minho, a new EP from WayV, and a debut single from HyoRiSoo - the newly formed Girls' Generation unit of Hyoyeon, Yuri and Sooyoung. Red Velvet's "Velvet Summer," which the group released Monday, is also counted in the quarter's slate. The fourth quarter is heavier still: full-length albums from Super Junior's Yesung, Girls' Generation's Taeyeon, NCT's Jaehyun and NCT Dream, EPs from TVXQ's Changmin, WayV's Xiaojun and NCT Wish, an EP from an EXO unit, a new single from Hearts2Hearts, and a comeback from RIIZE.
It's a release calendar built to keep momentum through the end of the year regardless of what the quarterly numbers say - a full-length album alone typically outsells and outperforms a single or EP on both physical charts and touring revenue, which may be part of the logic behind stacking four full albums into the fourth quarter. Whether that's enough to close the gap between rising revenue and shrinking profit is a question SM's next earnings report will have to answer, not this one.
