{"id":56957,"date":"2025-09-11T09:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T09:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/56957\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T09:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T09:30:08","slug":"kakao-stock-jumps-after-iu-surprise-releases-new-song-bye-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/56957\/","title":{"rendered":"Kakao Stock Jumps After IU Surprise Releases New Song &#8216;Bye, Summer&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"image-embed-link color-link image-embed__placeholder\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/jeffbenjamin\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"FORBES.com\" style=\"padding-top:66.67%;position:relative\" data-ga-track=\"InternalLink:https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/jeffbenjamin\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" top-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1757583008_403_960x0.jpg\" alt=\"The 4th Blue Dragon Series Awards - Photocall\" data-height=\"753\" data-width=\"1130\" fetchpriority=\"high\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0\" data-ga-track=\"InternalLink:https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/jeffbenjamin\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Before releasing surprise single &#8220;Bye, Summer,&#8221; actress and singer IU aka Lee Ji-Eun poses for a photocall for The 4th Blue Dragon Series Awards at Paradise City on July 18, 2025 in Incheon, South Korea. (Photo by Han Myung-Gu\/WireImage)<\/p>\n<p>WireImage <\/p>\n<p>With a surprise release from one of its representative artists in <a class=\"color-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/profile\/ji-eun-lee-iu\/\" data-ga-track=\"InternalLink:https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/profile\/ji-eun-lee-iu\/\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"IU\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">IU<\/a>, <a class=\"color-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/companies\/kakao\" data-ga-track=\"InternalLink:https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/companies\/kakao\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"Kakao Corp\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Kakao Corp<\/a>\u2019s stock earned a slight bump on Wednesday, September 10, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Continuing a positive week on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) since Monday, Kakao Corp\u2019s stock closed at 59,900 Korean won (about $43.16), gaining 300 KRW (nearly 25 cents), to deliver a 0.5% increase for the day.<\/p>\n<p>IU Officially Drops \u201cBye, Summer\u201d in a Surprise Release<\/p>\n<p>Known as the queen of K-pop and K-dramas, dominating singer-actress IU delighted listeners with the surprise release of her song \u201cBye, Summer\u201d across streaming platforms. The track quickly scaled the charts of Korea\u2019s domestic services \u2014 entering the Top 10 of its most popular service, Melon, within 24 hours \u2014 and seems likely to stick around the charts as a track capturing the changing seasons.<\/p>\n<p>The <a class=\"color-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forbes.com\/30-under-30\/2021\/asia\/entertainment-sports\/\" data-ga-track=\"InternalLink:https:\/\/forbes.com\/30-under-30\/2021\/asia\/entertainment-sports\/\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"30 Under 30 - Forbes Asia alum\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">30 Under 30 &#8211; Forbes Asia alum<\/a> previously performed \u201cBye, Summer\u201d live in concert, <a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=pDvBiB1waBk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-ga-track=\"ExternalLink:https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=pDvBiB1waBk\" aria-label=\"releasing a performance\">releasing a performance<\/a> from the <a class=\"color-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/jeffbenjamin\/2025\/01\/22\/iu-brings-her-world-tour-to-cinemas-with-concert-the-winning-film\/\" data-ga-track=\"InternalLink:https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/jeffbenjamin\/2025\/01\/22\/iu-brings-her-world-tour-to-cinemas-with-concert-the-winning-film\/\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"finale encore concert of her 2024 HEREH World Tour\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">finale encore concert of her 2024 HEREH World Tour<\/a> in Seoul. The live video showcasing the new song and IU\u2019s guitar skills has garnered over 7.4 million views since its upload on YouTube last October.<\/p>\n<p>EDAM Entertainment represents IU, a label especially established for the superstar by Kakao Corp\u2019s Kakao Entertainment division in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Looking Ahead for Kakao: WOODZ\u2019s Comeback<\/p>\n<p>As IU climbs the K-pop charts, she joins fellow EDAM Entertainment artist WOODZ, the only other singer signed to the agency, who has been riding high with the success of his unexpected breakout hit \u201cDrowning,\u201d originally released back in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Despite WOODZ being in the process of completing his mandatory South Korean military service, \u201cDrowning\u201d managed to reach No. 1 on Korea\u2019s Circle Digital Chart this past May, with the track remaining a long-lasting hit and still in the Top 10 of many streaming service charts, including the overall Melon chart.<\/p>\n<p>With more attention on him than ever, WOODZ began teasing his return to the music industry in July with the surprise release of a new song, \u201cSmashing Concrete\u201d (above), and an accompanying visualizer that has more than half a million listens on YouTube so far.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps it\u2019s the element of surprise that\u2019s driving EDAM Entertainment\u2019s success with both WOODZ and IU, as they manage to attract listeners with minimal promotion and buzz.<\/p>\n<p>Kakao Corp\u2019s entertainment division is also home to K-pop labels like Starship Entertainment (which is home to chart-topping acts like <a class=\"color-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/profile\/ive\/\" data-ga-track=\"InternalLink:https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/profile\/ive\/\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"IVE\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">IVE<\/a>, Monsta X, WJSN, CRAVITY, and KiiiKiii), High Up Entertainment (home to girl group STAYC), Atenna (home to several entertainers, soloists, as well as groups like Toy and rookie rock band Dragon Pony), while also having a majority stake in pioneering agency <a class=\"color-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/companies\/s-m-entertainment\/\" data-ga-track=\"InternalLink:https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/companies\/s-m-entertainment\/\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"SM Entertainment\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">SM Entertainment<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Kakao Entertainment previously shared in statement earlier this year that the company plans to \u201cbeef up our competitiveness in the music business, introduce various genres of K-pop to the world, and enhance its global clout\u201d in 2025, while vowing to \u201csupport our major artists to further amplify their global presence this year, while discovering new talent across diverse genres and bringing them to the international stage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Look out for more big news likely to follow very soon for WOODZ and more.<\/p>\n<p>Kakao Corp\u2019s stock is up nearly 60% year-to-date on the KOSPI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before releasing surprise single &#8220;Bye, Summer,&#8221; actress and singer IU aka Lee Ji-Eun poses for a photocall for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[41168,18,117,19,17,41164,41163,41162,41160,41169,41161,41167,337,41165,41166],"class_list":{"0":"post-56957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-edam-entertainment","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-iu-bye-summer","14":"tag-iu-new-song","15":"tag-iu-songs","16":"tag-kakao","17":"tag-kakao-corp","18":"tag-kakao-entertainment","19":"tag-kakao-music","20":"tag-music","21":"tag-woodz","22":"tag-woodz-new-song"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}