FROM: Daesung Group

Who is the Most Popular Korean Wave Star?

[November 1, 2011]  Korea.com’s English website (en.korea.com) has announced the rankings for the most popular Korean Wave stars as selected by fans in countries outside of Korea. These rankings, which include actors and singers, are based on number of votes by Korea.com fan club members as of October 31, 2011. Super Junior ranked first with 3,063 votes, followed by Jang Keun Suk (2,303 votes), SHINee (2,138 votes), Lee Min Ho (1,972 votes) and SNSD (1,924 votes).  

In the best singer category, Super Junior ranked first, while SHINee, SNSD, 2PM and Big Bang ranked second, third, fourth and fifth respectively. These results implied that foreign fans seemed to prefer idol groups who are able to both sing and dance more than solo singers.

In the best actor category, Jang Keun Suk came in first, with Lee Min Ho, Kim Beom, Hyun Bin and Park Shin Hye ranking second, third, fourth and fifth respectively.  The rise in Jang Keun Suk’s popularity can be attributed to the fact that the TV series You’re Beautiful starring Jang Keun Seuk, Park Shin Hye and Joo Yeon has aired in Asian countries including Japan and China. Further, Jang Keun Suk’s fan club has the greatest number of Chinese fans among all fan clubs from Korea.com.

When looking at fan club members on Korea.com by country, the greatest number are from the Philippines followed by Malaysia, Indonesia, the United States and Singapore. Recently, there has been a rapid increase of fans from Islamic countries including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Brunei.

Eight of the top ten Korean Wave stars are men while two are girl groups.

Korea.com has 46 fan clubs for singers, 18 for actors and 12 for dramas. All the managers and staff of these fan clubs are foreigners. They create and manage these fan clubs on a voluntary basis, gathering and sharing information about their favorite stars with other fans, thus helping the spread of the Korean Wave.

Yuna Nordin from Brunei is a staff member of a fan club and is in charge of graphics design for Lee Min Ho’s fan club.  She stated, “I became a fan of Lee Min Ho after watching the TV series Boys over Flowers and ever since, have been actively involved in his fan club. Although my job keeps me busy, I enjoy updating fan club with the latest on Korean dramas and music. Also, the Korean Wave is becoming more popular in Brunei.”

Ed Kim who runs the English side of Korea.com noted, “The fact that the number of fan clubs created by foreign fans has increased to 76 this year is news in itself. Korea.com supports and encourages foreign fans to join these clubs and we feel they contribute greatly to the popularization of the Korean Wave around the world.”

Korea.com took the needs and interests of foreign users into consideration and thus created its English sub-site for foreigners last year in August. The English version offers a wide range of contents on Korea including entertainment, culture, IT and more. It has been just a year since the launch of the English website and already there are over 1.8 million “likes” on its Facebook page.