Hearts2Hearts Claims 9 Rookie Awards at HMA 2025: SM's First New Girl Group in 5 Years Makes History

On February 15, Hearts2Hearts claimed the New Artist Award at the 33rd Hanteo Music Awards (HMA 2025) — their ninth rookie trophy of the season. That total made them the most awarded debut act of 2025, surpassing every group that entered K-pop that year. For SM Entertainment's first new girl group in five years, the milestone arrived less than twelve months after their February 24 debut and confirmed that their commercial arrival had translated into the broadest industry recognition in a competitive generation of new acts.

The nine-award total came from a compressed string of major ceremonies: three trophies at the 2025 MAMA Awards, two at MMA 2025, and additional wins at the 2nd D Awards, the 2025 Brand Awards, the Korea First Brand Awards, and finally HMA 2025. Each win built upon the last in a way that signaled genuine momentum rather than a single breakout moment. By the time the Hanteo ceremony concluded in mid-February 2026, Hearts2Hearts had become the most awarded rookie act in the year that defined SM Entertainment's post-Lee Sooman era.

The Weight of SM's First New Girl Group Since aespa

When SM Entertainment announced Hearts2Hearts in early 2025, the comparison to aespa was unavoidable. Aespa debuted in November 2020 and became one of the defining fourth-generation acts in K-pop, accumulating a global fandom and commercial record that raised the bar for any SM girl group to follow. The label had not launched a new girl group in the five years between aespa's debut and Hearts2Hearts — a gap that concentrated industry expectations into a single new act and gave the group unusual scrutiny from day one.

Their debut single "The Chase" landed on February 24, 2025, and the follow-up mini album FOCUS demonstrated a group comfortable with a "mysterious and beautiful" sonic identity that SM positioned as emotionally distinct from aespa's technological concept. The results came quickly: an Oricon Daily Album Chart No. 1 in Japan, a top-11 placement on The Fader's "51 Best Songs of 2025" list (the highest-ranking K-pop entry), and selection by British outlet NME as one of its "Essential Emerging Artists For 2026." These were not just domestic accolades — they were indicators of a cross-market momentum that expanded the group's profile beyond the Korean fanbase core.

Rookie Award Sweep: Context and Significance

Nine rookie trophies across a single award season is rare. To understand the scale, consider that most fourth-generation groups — even commercially successful ones — typically secure two to four rookie awards in their debut year, with five or six representing a strong performance. Hearts2Hearts reached nine, and the spread across both Korean domestic ceremonies (MAMA, MMA, Hanteo) and international brand surveys (Vietnam, Indonesia) signals multi-region fandom penetration at a level that few groups achieve in their first year.

The 2025 MAMA Awards, where the group won three trophies including Best New Artist, marked their first appearance at K-pop's largest annual ceremony. Winning there on a debut appearance is unusual — MAMA reserves its major prizes for acts with substantial fandom infrastructure and global voting mobilization — and three wins suggested that Hearts2Hearts' fanbase had organized with an efficiency that typically takes groups years to develop. The MMA (Melon Music Awards) wins reinforced that their music was resonating not just with dedicated fans but with casual streaming listeners.

Global Reach as a Differentiator

What distinguishes the Hearts2Hearts case from previous SM debuts is the speed and breadth of international traction. Their brand award wins spanned Korea, Vietnam, and Indonesia — three markets representing distinct audience profiles and fandom cultures. Performing simultaneously in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia on a debut album is something that typically develops over several releases as a group builds streaming numbers and social media presence in each region.

The iHeartRadio Music Awards nomination for Best New Artist (K-pop) extended that reach to North American recognition infrastructure — a category that signals the group had generated enough English-language press and global streaming activity to register within US entertainment industry visibility. NME's listing in its 2026 emerging artists feature, meanwhile, positioned Hearts2Hearts within British music journalism's international awareness, completing a triangulation of Western attention that only a small number of K-pop groups achieve before their second year.

Impact and Industry Implications

The Hearts2Hearts debut year established a new baseline for what SM Entertainment's promotional infrastructure can accomplish for a girl group in a changed K-pop landscape. The label deployed this first post-Lee Sooman girl group with apparent confidence, leaning into multi-region strategy from the outset rather than consolidating domestic success first. The result — nine rookie trophies and documented global reach — suggests the approach worked and will likely influence how SM positions its next new acts.

For the wider K-pop industry, the Hearts2Hearts debut added a new data point to the ongoing conversation about fifth-generation competition. Their nine-award year was achieved without a chart-dominating single of the scale produced by some IVE or NewJeans tracks, suggesting that a deep fan engagement model — smaller initial casual reach but highly mobilized fandom — can still accumulate the institutional recognition that awards represent. In the months and years that followed, this would become one of the more closely studied rookie blueprints of the mid-2020s K-pop generation.