Rosé and Bruno Mars’ chart-topping APT drives YG Plus shares to seven-month high

Shares of South Korean media company YG Plus soared to a seven-month high after the release of a collaboration track between Blackpink member Rosé and Bruno Mars on Oct. 18 topped streaming charts.

YG Plus shares climbed almost 30% on Monday, and as much as 29.8% on Tuesday, after the track, titled APT, reached the top of Spotify’s Top 50 Global playlist and came in fourth on iTunes’ Top 100: Global chart.

The track is a reference to a South Korean drinking game called aparteu, or apartment in English.

The official music video on YouTube has garnered over 82.9 million views, reportedly surpassing Taylor Swift and Post Malone’s Fortnight as the biggest male-female duet debut of 2024.

Rosé debuted in 2016 as one of the four members of Blackpink, under Kosdaq-listed YG Entertainment.

She left YG Entertainment at the end of 2023, and signed with The Black Label, a YG subsidiary, as well as U.S. record label Atlantic Records for her solo career.

Records from The Black Label are distributed by YG Plus, also a YG Entertainment subsidiary.

YG Entertainment shares climbed as much as 3.53% on Tuesday.

Despite the boost, the parent company’s stocks have dropped 22.5% year-to-date, dragged by uncertain conditions facing the global music industry.

South Korean pop stars are smashing records, performing at premier music festivals in the West and topping charts — but that stratospheric success has not been mirrored in the long term stock performance of their management agencies.