who is currently the biggest group in SM entertaiment ?

nct

Aespa for sure

might depend on the metrics, but I'd give it to nct.

NCT Dream

We don't have the year end report yet, but previous reporting shows that NCT was over 53% of SM's album sales.

From the 3rd quarter report, albums are their largest revenue driver and NCT has the most albums. The second is merchandise - NCT has the most merch, including lucrative co-branded products with Sanrio. Third is appearances/advertising/events - this would seem to favor Dream, which has the most event appearances. Aespa, NCT 127 and NCT Dream all have CF partnerships with large companies. Next is touring - NCT 127 is on the largest, highest grossing tour, followed by Dream, which is playing smaller and fewer venues.

NCT Dream and 127 are pretty neck in neck in terms of major CFs, with 127 taking the lead in touring. However, Dream has released more albums this year (3 to 1). If albums are the biggest revenue driver for the company, then they are currently the biggest group in SM Entertainment. If 127 was also releasing multiple albums, it might be pretty close to tied, as it was last year, since 127's 1 album was pretty comparable to Dream's 1st album sales for the year. It's also not clear yet if Dream can drive the touring levels of 127 globally yet, although I'm sure they'll be there soon.

aespa and Red Velvet are doing well but they are definitely not the biggest groups in the company. (Although it does speak of aespa's potential that they too were able to crack the top 15 of the Circle Chart in physical sales with just 1 release this year.)

from the business filing:

Digging deeper into the filling reveals that SM’s ‘Album/ Digital music’ segment was the company’s biggest revenue driver in Q3, generating 72 billion South Korea Won ($54.3m) across the quarter.

That revenue figure represented YoY growth of 14.5% versus 66.8 billion South Korea Won ($50.4m) in Q3 2021 (see below).

Details here:

K-Pop giant SM Entertainment sees revenues soar 65.4% YoY to $179.4m in Q3 - Music Business Worldwide

Company is behind K-Pop stars like SUPER JUNIOR, Girls’ Generation, SHINee, EXO, Red Velvet, KANGTA, BoA, TVXQ!, NCT and aespa.

www.musicbusinessworldwide.com

NCT Dream for sure. They got KB ads, tours and had released 3 albums this years. Plus all the merch...