When will Kpop stop ignoring Southeast Asia?

i wonder why kpop groups dont promote there? they have lots of fans?....?....

YG was smart to put Lisa in Blackpink.

Yeah, SEA fans are one of the most dedicated I've seen, sad that most Ents. have their eyes mostly on China and Japan

Fans used to be so cool making banners for their bias

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Quote from lovelybp

i wonder why kpop groups dont promote there? they have lots of fans?....?....

because SE Asia is poor compared to east asia and the west.

They have sort of, they just don't value it as highly or seek after as much as say Japan, the US or even China and the reason is simple, these companies aren't in their feelings about it, they don't care what fans say. To them with the raw data in hand they know promoting in China, Japan, USA, etc the time and cost is the same to them but the return isn't and even combined the the SEA market is much much less valuable than say Japan or America...so why promote as much?

Also not only is it less valuable but it's actually more difficult to promote as SEA isn't just one country, it's not a simple as going on Japanese TV or putting English subs on YT videos...you would have to target the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc separately to promote as effectively as other single country markets.

So it's pretty obvious and you kind of low key answer the question yourself in the OP. "Most SEA look up to Korea and welcomes them with open arms" this already gives us an answer somewhat, Kpop is already largely welcomed in most SEA countries who don't have developed idol industries like Japan and China so specifically targeting those countries is sometimes needed to gain attention where it's not the same for SEA, they already are interested in Kpop.

Also more and more companies are. Several JYPE acts promoted on Indonesia TV last year, BTS and BP too. Several companies have added SEA idols to their groups since 3rd gen, etc. Multiple groups include Thai subs now on YT content such as Twice, Got7, etc so slowly but surely companies are expanding to places like Thailand and Indonesia.

TL;DR it's probably harder to specifically target SEA than other markets, financially it's a smaller market and natural interest already exist in SEA for Kpop anyway.

makes sense to try to break into the biggest markets. at the end of the day, it's a business. they wouldn't mind being popular in other SEA countries too, but their focus is on the big players in the market.

But they are not really ignored, many groups tour a lot over there... then you have bp or bts having deals with big sea companies.

It mostly comes down to kpop being already big in sea, while china is an still bigger and uncharted territory

Probably when more of the "suits" that "feel a sort of way" about SE Asia are no longer running the companies.

There’s no money in those countries.

ah the casual racism in this thread

This post is ridiculous.

First SEA is not one country like China or Japan is. They are different countries that all speak different languages and have their own culture. So comparing SEA market to China or Japan is ignorant.

Second Kpop has already been targeting SEA countries since 2007. They went on shows in the early days and have regular concerts there. They even include SEA members in some groups so I don’t even know why you act like Kpop ignore SEA. How did you think Kpop got to where they are right now in SEA? It didn’t happen without any effort.

LSM is talking about China because Kpop is not making as much money as they could have. It’s like a student who will focus his study on the class he did terribly on the mid-term. On the other hand, kpop is growing just fine in SEA. What else is there to talk about? When Kpop say to target somewhere they just mean to earn money there. They already doing that with SEA market. They have Thai members who earn major endorsements. They have huge stadium concerts there. Even when Kpop target Japan or the US - they mean to make money. So yes, kpop is already paying attention to SEA and been making good money there for a long time.

I would LOVE to see album sales figures for SEA. Hanteo gives us a rough idea of how many albums Koreans and C Bars who order through Hanteo stores buy. Oricon gives us sales figures from the Japanese market. BB gives us some numbers from the US.

But unless the labels themselves break down their sales by region or country, it seems like finding SEA sales data is extremely difficult.

Japan is better.

Another reason Kpop or Western pop for that matter might not want to venture too far into SEA is that the acts and labels might be afraid of the talent sitting in the Philippines.

Imagine your average Western autotuned pop star or Korean manufactured idol trying to promote in Manila and then having their performances compared to talents like these. Morissette was like 18-19 here and the boy, Darren, was even younger, maybe 15-17. Imagine casually chatting on a sofa then BAM, they belt out the most difficult pop song in years, complete with perfect harmonies.

I agree with BlackpinkHouse that we need to see album sales and tour data for non-big4 groups.

The big4 groups will always sell in SEA and tour there - the question is can non-big4 groups get the same level of success in SEA as the bigger groups.

now I'm obviously not saying that a group like Weekly should be pulling in similar streaming numbers to BP or BTS but can they do comparative numbers in terms of sales and streaming.