[Click e-Stock] "Will YG Bounce Back from Weak MD Sales with Big Bang's 20th Anniversary?"

On November 10, Hana Securities lowered its target price for YG Entertainment (hereafter YG) from 145,000 won to 120,000 won, citing that merchandise (MD) sales from BLACKPINK’s world tour fell significantly short of expectations and triggered a decline in the stock price. The investment opinion remains 'Buy'.

YG’s revenue and operating profit for the third quarter were 173.1 billion won (+107% year-on-year) and 31.1 billion won (return to profit), respectively, which slightly missed the market consensus of 33.8 billion won in operating profit.

Lee Gihun, a researcher at Hana Securities, stated, “Concert revenue reached 50.8 billion won, which was higher than expected due to two domestic stadium shows and 13 world stadium shows by BLACKPINK. However, the MD segment recorded 28.1 billion won, which was significantly below expectations. It is presumed that, since the tour was held without an album release, there was some disappointment in terms of mobilizing fans.” He estimated fourth quarter operating profit at 24.4 billion won, reflecting the downward revision of MD sales and the postponement of BLACKPINK’s album release to the first quarter of next year.

Although the first quarter results of BLACKPINK’s world tour were clearly disappointing, there is potential for record-breaking performance in 2026, which marks both the 20th anniversary of Big Bang and the 30th anniversary of YG. Lee noted, “During Big Bang’s last tour, around 1.6 million people attended just in Japan. If a tour is held for a year starting from the second half of next year, local revenue in Japan alone is expected to exceed 300 billion won. Taking this into account, the profit outlook for 2026 could rise to between 110 billion and 130 billion won.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.