The entertainment division of South Korean tech giant Kakao has partnered with China and Japan’s largest audio streaming providers to launch a new ‘K-pop Artist Chart.’
Kakao Entertainment signed separate memoranda of understanding with China’s Tencent Music Entertainment and Japan’s Line Music to integrate K-pop streaming data into a new chart that will be handled by Melon, Kakao’s music streaming service in the South Korean market.
The chart is expected to debut on Melon in the first half of this year and will “calculate rankings based on comprehensive metrics of music enthusiasts’ engagement and streaming activity across all participating platforms,” Kakao said.
Tencent is China’s largest provider of music streaming services, operating the QQ Music, Kugou and Kuwo platforms, as well as JOOX, a music streaming app that operates in Asian markets including Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
Line Music is Japan’s most popular listening app, and is integrated with the Line Messenger app that is used by a large majority of Japanese residents.
Kakao’s Melon was South Korea’s most popular music streaming platform until it was unseated in recent years by YouTube. It remains among the most popular, and is credited with having helped propel K-pop to popularity. Its annual Melon Music Awards celebrate the most popular K-pop artists.
“It is very meaningful to introduce a global-standard chart for K-pop amid its ongoing boom, created by three companies spearheading the Asian music industry,” Kakao Entertainment co-CEO Joseph Chang said.
“The ‘K-pop Artist Chart’ will add new value to the industry, artists, and music enthusiasts by delivering a reliable standard. Going forward, Kakao Entertainment will continue to contribute to the growth of the K-pop ecosystem and the elevation of its global influence.”
“The ‘K-pop Artist Chart’ will add new value to the industry, artists, and music enthusiasts by delivering a reliable standard.”
Joseph Chang, Kakao Entertainment
Line Music CEO Jun Masuda noted that K-pop “is in high demand” in Japan.
“Being able to reflect every activity of Japanese followers on a global chart will be a meaningful initiative. Alongside such a global move by K-pop, Line Music will also continue striving to expand the ecosystem for J-pop and Japanese artists as a music platform.”
The new K-pop chart comes a few months after Luminate, the data company that powers the Billboard charts, announced it had struck a deal with Tencent Music to incorporate Chinese listening data for the first time in its Global charts.
Melon’s data has been part of the Billboard charts since 2023.
Besides owning Melon, Kakao Entertainment is a major shareholder in SM Entertainment, the K-pop agency behind such acts as Super Junior and aespa. Kakao won a bidding war against entertainment giant HYBE for control of the company in 2023.
That bidding war triggered a criminal investigation into potential violations of securities laws, leading to the arrest and indictment of several Kakao executives, including its founder and Chairman, Kim Beom-su. A Seoul court acquitted Kim and his co-defendants last October.Music Business Worldwide
