BTS members RM, Jimin, V, Jin, Jungkook, Suga, and J-Hope had an emotional reunion at the group’s 12th anniversary, celebrated through the FESTA event.

The special performance by J-Hope at the Goyang Complex brought the septet together after 18 months apart due to military service.

While June saw BTS take cultural dominance to another level—with their global popularity cutting across borders and fans waiting months for a musical comeback—it was rising K-pop stars SEVENTEEN who stole the spot.

Recently crowned the most popular and successful K-pop group of 2024–2025 by an American website, Pledis Entertainment’s boy band topped the brand value list once ruled by BIGHIT stars.

BTS loses June brand value ranking to SEVENTEEN

According to the Korea Brand Reputation Index (via Soompi), while BTS topped the list in May with a brand reputation score of 7,811,108, marking a 2.54% increase from April, the legendary boy band slipped to 6,843,685 in June.

Meanwhile, SEVENTEEN shot up to 7,027,417, with a dramatic 22.66% rise in their score since May. Alongside their recent album Happy Birthday, other top-ranking keywords included “MINITEEN” and “Bad Influence,” while related search terms were “record,” “sales,” “donate,” and “reveal.” Their positivity-to-negativity index analysis also changed, scoring 91.78% positive reactions.

Earlier this month, SEVENTEEN graced the cover of The Hollywood Reporter, which named them the biggest and most successful boy band of 2024–25.

Their album sales even outperformed big-league American pop acts like Kendrick Lamar and Billie Eilish, with the group being compared to Taylor Swift and Drake, who hold the top two global positions. Their Asia tour (2023–2024) alone raked in $98.4 million from just 24 shows, making it the highest-grossing K-pop tour of the year. The 13-member K-pop act includes S.Coups, Jeonghan, Joshua, Jun, Hoshi, Wonwoo, Woozi, DK, Mingyu, The8, Seungkwan, Vernon, and Dino.

BIGBANG, despite being on an indefinite hiatus, never really left the scene when it comes to brand power, thanks to the popularity of members like G-Dragon, who consistently dominates solo rankings too.

For June, the group’s brand reputation index stood at 4,318,118, up from May’s 3,381,072. Meanwhile, SHINee took fourth place with a reputation index of 3,639,299, marking a solid 35% jump from the previous month. Stray Kids also clawed back into the chart, posting a massive 119.51% surge with a score of 3,042,888 for June.

While groups like ASTRO, ZEROBASEONE, Treasure, and 2 PM have slipped to much lower rankings.

According to the KBRI, the rankings are determined after an analysis of “consumer participation, media coverage, interaction, and community indexes of various boy groups” in the given period.