K-pop prospects brighten as investors bet on its return to China

The prospects for K-pop music have brightened after Seoul and Beijing signed a content-sharing agreement, paving the way for South Korean entertainment to enter the Chinese market again.

South Korea’s national broadcaster KBS entered on Saturday A working agreement for media exchange and cooperation With Chinese state media company China Media Group. The CMG includes state media organizations such as China Central Television, and is directly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

SM Entertainment shares rose as much as 8.11%, while JYP Entertainment shares rose more than 9.39%. YG Entertainment and Hybe saw high gains today of about 4% and 3%, respectively. Stocks have pared their gains since then.

KBS said the agreement “promotes content sharing across the board, not only in news and sports, but also across culture, including the Chinese launch of the ‘Music Bank World Tour’.” Music Bank is KBS’s main program that features K-pop artists when they release new music.

KBS Chairman Park Jang Beom “I think it’s helpful that we’ve made progress that will allow the entire Korean content industry to once again make a complete foray into the Chinese market,” he said.

This comes at a time when South Korean President Lee Jae-myung and Chinese President Xi Jinping met during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. Lee writes on Facebook He added that the summit was “very important because it completely restored Korea-China relations.”

The return of K-pop music to China could mark a turning point for the industry, after China imposed a “soft ban” on K-pop content in 2016 after South Korea deployed the US anti-ballistic missile defense system, also known as THAAD, on its territory.

Park, who is also co-chair of the South Korean Presidential Committee for People’s Cultural Exchange. He posted a photo on his Instagram account On the same account, South Korean President Lee and China’s Xi are engaged in a conversation.

South Korean MP Kim Young-bae Posted on Facebook During the conversation, a proposal was made to host a large-scale concert in Beijing, and Xi responded by summoning Foreign Minister Wang Yi and giving instructions.

“I expect this to be a moment that goes beyond lifting the ban on Korean culture and opens the door to broad progress in Korea,” Kim said, according to a Google translation.

As for SM, Oh noted that the company has historically shown the highest sensitivity to China-related news, also because SM’s second-largest shareholder is Chinese tech giant Tencent.

In April, SM Entertainment’s label DearU also partnered with Tencent Music Entertainment to launch its Bubble messaging service in China.

The network said that KBS plans to strengthen its cooperation with CMG at the APEC Summit, which will be held in Shenzhen, China, next year.

As did the local media Reported that the partnership She will help revive the “Korea-China Song Festival,” an event that was held from 1999 to 2016 and saw Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, perform at the festival in 2006, according to KBS.

“From my point of view, I think it is still a positive sign that cultural cooperation is starting to improve again. And when it comes [the] “The KBS and CMG agreement, I think, is also a very meaningful step towards the normalization of K-pop activities in China,” Oh said.

While there have been small-scale K-pop appearances by groups, such as fan meetings and individual appearances by members, no large-scale concerts or activities have been held in mainland China, with the groups making tour stops in Macau or Hong Kong.

In what would have been the first time an all-Korean group has held a concert in mainland China since 2016, boy band EPEX was scheduled to perform in Fuzhou, China, in May, but the show was postponed “due to local circumstances,” according to the site. To South Korean media.

Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan combined were among the largest K-pop markets, despite the “soft ban”, being the second-largest export market for music exports from South Korea in terms of export share in 2023, according to Korea Creative Content Agency Report Published in July. It accounted for 26.1% of music exports from South Korea in 2023, worth $319.58 million.

Japan, South Korea’s largest music export market, had an export share of 35.1%, worth $429.08 million in music exports in 2023.

According to 2025 Overseas Hallyu Survey Published by the South Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange, China’s favorability rating for South Korea was 73.5%, higher than the overall average of the survey.

Hallyu, or the Korean Wave, refers to the spread of South Korean content around the world. The survey also indicated that interest in Hallyu content within China has not diminished despite restrictions on direct distribution of Korean content.

“In general, Chinese consumers’ interest in and consumption of Korean cultural content continues to grow, and there is great potential for Korean content to exert greater economic and cultural influence in the future,” he added.

The survey also noted that the Chinese government’s recent announcement of policies aimed at attracting foreign investment and easing regulations are fueling expectations of an easing of the Hallyu ban.

In a report issued earlier this year, Morgan Stanley noted that the rise in K-pop stocks was mainly due to investors’ expectations that China would open its market to K-pop artists.

— CNBC’s Blair Pike contributed to this report.