October 2026 Boy Group Brand Reputation Rankings: BTS Stay on Top as ATEEZ and Stray Kids Climb

Every month, K-pop fans wait for one list to see whether their favourite group is rising, holding steady or slipping. The latest numbers are in, and while the top spot didn’t change, the race right behind it got interesting. Here’s how October’s boy group brand reputation rankings shook out.

October 2026 Top 5 : Overview

How the Rankings Work?

The Korean Business Research Institute compiles this list every month. It analyses consumer participation, media coverage, interaction and community indexes for male idol groups, using big data collected from September 10 to October 10. In short, it measures how much people are talking about, engaging with and reacting to each group online.

BTS: Still the Undisputed Number One

BTS held onto first place with an index of 7,690,856, a 15.94 percent jump from September. That’s more than double the score of the group in second place, which shows how wide the gap is. Their keyword analysis highlighted fan community terms like “ARMY,” along with “Song of the Year” and “Peru world tour.” Related terms such as “donate,” “chart” and “surpass” were also prominent, pointing to both charity and chart success driving conversation. Their positivity-negativity analysis was strong too, with 92.89 percent of reactions positive.

ATEEZ and Stray Kids on the Rise

The most exciting movement happened just below the leader. ATEEZ climbed to second place with an index of 3,662,988, while Stray Kids jumped to third with 3,275,051, up 7.17 percent from last month. Two groups with huge global followings are clearly gaining momentum, and the gap between second and third is small enough that next month’s list could easily flip them.

BIGBANG and SEVENTEEN Round Out the Top 5

BIGBANG came in a close fourth at 3,191,937, only a short distance behind Stray Kids. SEVENTEEN took fifth place with 2,953,636. It’s a tight cluster of scores, which shows how competitive the middle of the top five really is.

Ranks 6 to 10 and Beyond

The next five spots went to CORTIS (6), EXO (7), NCT (8), ENHYPEN (9) and TWS (10). Rounding out the top 15 were INFINITE, SHINee, Wanna One, Super Junior and BTOB. The full top 30 also included veterans such as TVXQ, MONSTA X and 2PM, along with newer names like BOYNEXTDOOR, ZEROBASEONE, AHOF, ALPHA DRIVE ONE and ATBO. It’s a nice mix of long-running groups and fresh faces.

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