Aerial view of a huge stadium full of lavender light sticks, fireworks, smaller venues glowing nearby

Could Lee Soo-man Become Bigger Than K-pop’s Big Four Combined?

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Part 5 of 7 in Lee Soo-man and A2O

Previously: The overseas transplant of the K-pop system that Lee Soo-man talked about for 19 years worked in China, and he may now have a chance to take China’s market alone, a market no Korean agency can enter. (Part 4)

The real reason Lee Soo-man built his nest in China is that the land where K-pop could grow biggest is, right now, the land K-pop has the hardest time getting into. Put the size of that land in numbers, and it becomes obvious why he is eyeing a spot above Korea’s four biggest agencies.

One concert market is bigger than the Big Four

China’s big-concert ticket sales in one year: about $4.1 billion Combined 2025 revenue of Korea’s Big Four agencies (HYBE, SM, JYP, YG): about $3.7 billion

The money China spent on big-concert tickets in a single year is more than the four companies that stand for K-pop earned in a year, all added together. A whole market and the revenue of four companies aren’t measured with the same ruler, but the direction this gap points in is clear.

In 2025 China passed Germany to become the world’s fourth-largest recorded music market, and its growth rate, 20.1%, was the highest of the top 20 countries (Music Business Worldwide, IFPI Global Music Report 2026). Revenue from large shows of 5,000 people or more topped $4.5 billion in a year (China Securities Journal, Jan. 2026, citing the China Association of Performing Arts).

2025 revenue
HYBE about $1.86 billion
SM about $830 million
JYP about $580 million
YG about $380 million
Big Four total about $3.7 billion
China big-concert ticket sales about $4.1 billion

Converted at ₩1,422.16 and ¥7.1429 per dollar (2025 averages; Korea JoongAng Daily, China’s National Bureau of Statistics). Sources: Newsis; Sidae Ilbo; Dealsite; News Culture; Dengta Pro via Tencent News, Apr. 2026.

Also read: BLACKPINK Just Got a State Medal in Their 10th Year. Here's the Decade That Earned It

Only certain teams can open that door

As Part 2 showed, Korean acts can’t play on this stage. Even BTS can’t perform in mainland China (Nocut News). A2O LITE, with three Korean members, may be no exception. So the protagonist of this calculation is a Chinese-heritage team like A2O MAY, which has already met fans in Shanghai.

Lee’s picture has two branches. Compete in Korea and the world with LITE and SOUL, who sing in Korean, and take the Chinese market, where Korean teams can’t go, with the Chinese-heritage MAY. If both branches work, it is not impossible that his company, if it ever lists, could be valued above Korea’s Big Four. The two numbers above are the size of that possibility.

Idols who never age and never leave: digital twins

What he is after is not just market size. In any country, when an artist gets big, the company gets weaker. Their price jumps at contract renewal, and sometimes they leave. The departures of Chinese members in Part 2 were, in the end, also a tug-of-war between grown artists and their company.

If you could lock an idol at their brightest moment in digital form, the math changes. If the rights to use a likeness and voice are settled by contract, the IP of that moment could belong to the company. It could keep releasing new songs, and it could perform in Seoul, Shanghai and Los Angeles on the same day. The “world of avatars” he described in 2021 (News Tomato) and the AI artist he has announced for December (ZDNet Korea, Oct. 21, 2026) both point this way.

A performer in white beside a glowing point-cloud twin in the same pose
The dancer and her data double.

An AI avatar service modeled on underage members has already drawn fierce backlash (Sports Kyunghyang, Oct. 15, 2026). But 30 years ago the idol trainee system drew the same questions, and that system is now the standard of K-pop.

Where the money for the next K-pop is

Building digital idols takes time, technology and, above all, money. The place where that money is biggest is China. He built his nest in China not only because he was pushed out, but because the money to build the next K-pop he imagines is there.

A man pushed out of the company named after him at 70 brought a Korean No. 1 home at 74, and is now aiming at the biggest market, China, and the farthest future, idols who never age, at the same time. As someone who loves K-pop, I envy the size of this 74-year-old’s dream, and I’m rooting for it with all my heart.

For the math to work, one hit isn’t enough. The next part is the first report card of his second bullet, the boy group A2O SOUL.

This post is not investment advice.

Lee Soo-man and A2O · Part 5 of 7

Part 6 is coming soon.

← Part 4: He Wasn't Exiled to China. He Planned It 19 Years Ago.

See all parts

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