"If 2025 was the year of 'investment' that laid the strategic foundation for 'HYBE 2.0,' 2026 will be the start of 'realisation' when its results begin to be seen."

HYBE CEO Lee Jae-sang said this in a New Year message on Thursday. He signalled that this year will be a turning point when the HYBE 2.0 strategy begins delivering results in earnest.

Lee said 2025 was a period of strategic investment and strengthening fundamentals to boost the company’s capabilities for sustainable growth. He stressed that this year will show the market that bold pre-emptive investment was the right direction and that the period of endurance to improve its fundamentals was worthwhile.

He presented five tasks that all employees must work together to achieve this year: verifying the business viability of new businesses and IP; establishing lasting IP and expanding the fan base through “innovation never tried before”; designing new experience models based on scarcity; securing leadership in an AI-based prosumer market; and implementing true global governance.

Lee said there is a need to prove the justification for investment in new businesses and artist IP where pre-emptive investment has been made. "We have confirmed meaningful traffic expansion, and now we must shift to a phase of generating valid revenue so that we can be confident in sustainable business viability," he said. "When investment shows results, new investment gains legitimacy and a virtuous cycle of growth is created," he explained.

He said the essence of HYBE’s business is to achieve pre-emptive innovation by merging content and technology based on core IP such as music and artists, and to offer fans immersive experiences in new ways. He said this means laying the groundwork for HYBE artists to exist as unrivalled IP with top quality and sustainability even amid changes in the environment.

He also stressed the need to design new experience models based on scarcity. "Scarcity is an important element that can increase the added value of the fandom business and the fan experience," he said. "2026 will be an important year when HYBE, as it has in the past, designs and tests a scarcity-based integrated online and offline experience model to innovate future music fandom business models," he added.

He said it is also important to secure leadership in a prosumer market where fans and users produce and exchange content directly. "From both a creative perspective and a platform perspective, we need to apply an integrated and concrete response model," he said. "By proactively protecting the value of IP while establishing a Fan to Fan model where fans freely create and communicate, we can set a market standard," he explained.

On its global strategy, he said it will build integrated governance in which key assets and know-how such as resources, personnel and content distribution are organically shared among global units. He said this will increase cross-border project cases and realise true global synergy.

Lee said HYBE’s growth philosophy is clear: to create top-level IP, lead the fandom business and expand those results into new markets and genres. "The protagonists who will lead this journey are all of us," he said, urging each HYBE employee to become “a driving force and partner in growth.”