For years, the winning formula for a K-pop girl group looked small and sharp: four or five members, each with a distinct identity, filling every frame. A new TenAsia analysis published on November 1 argues that the pendulum is swinging again, with seven-to-nine-member newcomers arriving in succession and betting that size itself can be a competitive advantage.
The examples are easy to list. SM Entertainment introduced the four-member aespa in 2020, then debuted the eight-member Hearts2Hearts last year, its first girl group of eight or more members since Girls’ Generation in 2007, a gap of about 18 years. This year, HYBE sub-label ABD debuted the seven-member TUIDE in August, a group of Korean and international members whose debut album “TUNE & PLAY” promoted a self-described “soultronic” sound blending soul and electronic music. Producer Lee Soo-man, meanwhile, launched the nine-member A2O LITE, whose debut song “NEON,” released on October 13, topped the Melon TOP100, and also presented the 15-member boy group A2O SOUL.
Performance is the most visible argument for the shift. Hearts2Hearts used all eight members in the choreography for “FOCUS,” released last October, splitting into two groups and reuniting in constantly changing formations to fill the stage. A2O LITE applied the same logic to “NEON,” moving from paired choreography into full-group routines, with a dance break in which several members move at once and layered harmonies that use the size of the vocal line-up as a musical feature.
The ILLIT case shows the other side of the arithmetic, and it is the most concrete recent example in the analysis. The five-member group released its fifth mini album “BREAK EVEN” on October 26, with the title track “You’re Under Arrest,” while member Moka was already on hiatus. Three days later, on October 29, agency BELIFT LAB announced that Wonhee and Iroha had both sustained ankle injuries during their schedules and were receiving treatment. The agency said the two would still perform at the Yonsei University festival that day, with formations and choreography partially adjusted for their condition and the outdoor stage. Soompi and allkpop reported the same statement, confirming the details independently of the TenAsia piece. TenAsia’s point is a simple one: in a four-member group, one absence removes a quarter of the line-up, while in an eight-member group it removes an eighth, leaving far more options to redistribute parts and formations.
Size also changes how a group reaches fans. With more members, there are more combinations of voice, dance, appearance and personality for listeners to attach to, and more individual entry points into the fandom. In an era when member-focused fan cams and short-form clips on YouTube and TikTok are consumed as heavily as full group performances, a large group can generate many different kinds of content from a single song. Unit activities add another layer: producers can mix members by vocal or dance strengths, stage performances with only part of the group, and keep content flowing even when the full line-up is not available.
None of this makes a large line-up automatically better, and the TenAsia analysis is careful to list the costs. More members mean higher spending on training, dormitories, costumes and travel, harder schedule coordination, and less stage time and fewer lines for each individual. Building evenly matched recognition across seven to nine members is difficult. Even the resilience argument has limits: if a main vocalist or a central dancer is the member who is absent, a large group feels that loss too, and simply having more people on stage does not erase it.
The small-group case remains strong, and it is written into the same history. aespa built a clear team identity with four members, each able to showcase a distinct voice and performance style, while BLACKPINK reached global stardom as a four-member group. With fewer members, each performer gets more opportunity to be heard and seen. The success of four- and five-member groups has not gone away; it is the backdrop against which the new large groups are being judged.
TenAsia itself cautions against reading too much into the trend, noting that it would be premature to conclude that K-pop as a whole is returning to a large-group era. The same company, SM, now fields both the four-member aespa and the eight-member Hearts2Hearts, which suggests that line-up size is becoming a choice tied to music and concept rather than a single industry rule. The real test for Hearts2Hearts, TUIDE and A2O LITE is whether they can turn size into sustained competitiveness: memorable songs, stages that genuinely need the extra members, and individual members strong enough to hold attention on their own. If they cannot, the next cycle may swing back toward the small line-ups that have dominated recent years.
