Two Weeks, No SM: Lee Soo-man’s A2O LITE Just Outranked BTS on Billboard With “NEON”

Featured photo: A2O LITE arriving at MBC Radio, October 21, 2026. Photo: K-POPIT via YouTube / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.

“NEON,” the debut single from A2O LITE, the new girl group built by Lee Soo-man, has climbed to No. 3 in the world outside the US on Billboard’s global charts. On the same chart, BTS’s “Swim” was No. 10. Three years after he left SM Entertainment, the company that carries his own name, Lee Soo-man made the highest-charting K-pop song of the week without the SM sign, just two weeks after debut. I have followed this group since its debut stage, and when I saw this chart I could not take my eyes off the screen for a long time.

The video stands at 29.01 million views and 535,000 likes (checked October 28, 2026).

No. 3 outside the US, with only two songs above it

Besides its US charts, Billboard publishes two global charts that combine streaming and sales from more than 200 countries and territories: the Global 200, which includes the US, and the Global Excl. U.S., which does not.[1]

On the chart dated October 31, released October 27 (US time), “NEON” ranked No. 3 on the Global Excl. U.S. It jumped 104 places from No. 107 the week before, and only two songs sat above it: Tate McRae’s “Housewife” and Karol G’s “BbY WOW.” On the Global 200, it debuted straight in at No. 8.[1][2]

Here is where the week’s other K-pop songs landed.[1]

Song	Global Excl. U.S.	Global 200
A2O LITE “NEON”	No. 3	No. 8
BTS “Swim”	No. 10	No. 28
Tame Impala & JENNIE “Dracula”	No. 22	No. 18
HUNTR/X “Golden” (KPop Demon Hunters)	No. 37	No. 36

According to Luminate, which compiles Billboard’s data, “NEON” was streamed 25.9 million times worldwide and sold 12,000 downloads in the week of October 16–22.[2] Those numbers come from one digital single, with no physical album.

Also read: The No. 1 Korea Doesn't Want to Believe: Why Fans Doubt A2O

Asia moved first, for two weeks

“NEON” was released on October 13.[2] It hit No. 1 on the Melon TOP100, Korea’s biggest music platform, in 29 hours and held the top spot for 13 straight days, from October 15 to 27.[3] How that record happened is in part 1 of this series, Korea Flipped When the King of K-pop Came Back. On music shows it won five times: The Show (October 20), Show Champion (21), M Countdown (22), Inkigayo (25) and Arirang TV’s Show! K-pop (26).[4]

The numbers outside Korea moved the same way. On Spotify’s daily charts, “NEON” held No. 1 in Korea for 12 days and in Taiwan for 10 days straight, also hit No. 1 in Hong Kong and climbed to No. 9 in Japan.[5] In Japan it was No. 2 on Billboard Japan’s Top User Generated Songs, and in China it topped QQ Music’s new-song, popular-song and music-video charts.[3]

On the other hand, it has not yet appeared on the US Hot 100.[1] This No. 3 did not start in America. Two weeks of plays piling up in Seoul, Taipei, Hong Kong and Tokyo pushed it to the top of an American chart company’s world ranking.

A map he drew when he founded SM

This sequence is not new. When Lee Soo-man founded SM Planning in 1989, he made “culture technology (CT),” exporting music wrapped in technology, the company’s calling card, and trained his trainees in dance and singing along with the idea that they “must become citizens of the world.”[6] In 2002, BoA, the singer he raised, became the first Korean artist to top Japan’s Oricon chart.[7] The map was to win Asia first with singers made in Korea, then go to the world.

The owner of that map left the company after the 2023 fight over SM’s management, and for three years he could not produce records in Korea. When that agreement ended in February 2026, he dove straight back into production.[3] Why he started again in China is in part 4 of this series, It Wasn’t Exile That Sent Him to China, and how big that market is in part 5, Lee Soo-man Could Become Bigger Than K-pop’s Big 4 Combined. His first launch, A2O MAY, made Billboard’s Emerging Artists chart in November 2025.[8] Eleven months later, A2O LITE, singing in Korean, made Billboard’s global Top 10.

“NEON” was written, composed and arranged by Yoo Young-jin, who has written Lee Soo-man’s songs since the SM Planning days, and he also handled vocal directing and mixing. The song runs 3 minutes 28 seconds and even includes a dance break, in a market flooded with two-minute songs built for TikTok.[3] The most-liked English comment under the video says exactly that: “This is the real KPOP I expect! Not a 2-min TikTok viral hit.” (6,100 likes) The top Korean comment reads, “Is this a Lee Soo-man memoir group? I can feel everything from BoA to S.E.S., Girls’ Generation, f(x), Red Velvet and aespa” (13,000 likes).[9]

Nowhere on this week’s Billboard global charts do the letters “SM” appear. The man behind the highest K-pop song on them is the one who, 37 years ago, gave that company the initials of his own name, Soo Man. And the name shining at the top is A2O LITE, two weeks into their career. I already can’t wait to see how high these girls climb next week.

Sources

1. Billboard, Billboard Global Excl. U.S. (October 31, 2026), Billboard Global 200 (October 31, 2026), Hot 100 (October 31, 2026), checked October 28, 2026
2. Newsis, October 27, 2026
3. @star1, October 27, 2026, Sports Kyunghyang, October 27, 2026
4. Topstar News, October 27, 2026
5. Kworb, NEON Spotify chart history, through the October 25 daily chart
6. ZDNet Korea, February 11, 2026
7. Monthly Chosun, February 2025
8. JTBC, November 2025
9. Comments on A2O WORLD’s “NEON” Official Video on YouTube, sorted by likes, checked October 26, 2026