2008: Overseas expansion


On October 2, 2007, SM Entertainment officially announced a third Super Junior sub-unit, Super Junior-M, a subgroup designated for the Chinese market. The announcement of the new sub-unit created a controversy between the fans and the management as fans did not support the management to add new members to the subgroup.[e] A fourth Super Junior sub-unit was created that same year as well to prevent the group from fading away in the Korean music industry since half of the group have pursued their goals to China. With five members from Super Junior-T and Yesung, they formed the subgroup, Super Junior-Happy.

Super Junior's first major tour, The 1st ASIA TOUR - "Super Show, commenced on February 22 to February 24 in Seoul. The tour will cover nine different cities, including Bangkok, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.

On August 2, 2008, Super Junior expanded their routes to Genting Highlands, Malaysia, being one of the top guest performers at the MTV Asia Awards 2008 along with other international performing artists such as OneRepublic and the Jabbawockeez. They are the third SM artist to win Favorite Artist Korea at the MTV Asia Awards after Kangta and BoA.

On September 25, 2008, SM Entertainment announced the comeback of Super Junior-T to be in Japan, pushing the group into the Japanese market. The subgroup released their first Japanese single, "ROCK&GO", with the support of Japanese comedy duo Moeyan on November 5, 2008 in Japan.

Super Junior's third album comeback

In July 2008, the group announced that Super Junior will end subgroup activities at the end of the year and will come together to prepare for their third studio album, which is slated to release in 2009. Leeteuk and Eunhyuk confirmed in their radio show in November that the album will be released around the spring. On November 13, 2008, Kyuhyun wrote in his fancafe stating that he is currently preparing for the third album "bit by bit" and the fans in Korea will be seeing more of the group in the upcoming year.

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