How Much Did WANNA ONE Make Last Year?

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The Produce 101 boy band Wanna One has reportedly earned 300M KRW per member.

Cha-ching.

On March 27, a Korean media outlet reported that each of the Wanna One members received around 300M KRW at the end of 2017. According to a source who wished to remain anonymous, while there may be slight differences in the contracts signed between each member and their agency, it is surmised that each member earned around 300M KRW from the Wanna One project alone. In other words, the 300M KRW is from the latter half of 2017, as the Wanna One project had been launched with the end of Mnet's audition show Produce 101 in June. That said, the sum of 300M KRW doesn't cover profits from all the individual projects.

Wanna One found themselves in the middle of the payment settlement controversy as a private video leaked of the members discussing how they are not being paid their fair share.

In the said video, the members of Wanna One are complaining why they haven't been paid yet, and why they only get to keep 20% of the total income. This caused some to believe that the top boy band isn't being treated fairly in terms of their finances.

As most K-pop bands do, Wanna One receives a predetermined percentage of the net profit, which excludes staff payment, transportation fees, meal expenses, rental fees, and more.

CJ E&M which produces the band's albums takes 25% while YMC Entertainment which manages the band takes 25%. Wanna One members and their respective agencies split the other half.

By this calculation, Wanna One as a group seems to have made a total of 13 billion KRW in the latter half of 2017, with their debut mini album ‘1X1=1(TO BE ONE)’ and the prequel repackaged album ‘1-1=0(NOTHING WITHOUT YOU).’ They sold a total of 1.4M copies.

By Goldbin and Arin Kim voomvoomk@gmail.com