Nearly 10 million K-pop albums sold in May

K-pop boy group Seventeen sold 2.24 million copies of its latest album, "Face the Sun," in May. Courtesy of Pledis Entertainment

By Dong Sun-hwa

It's hard to spot anyone listening to CDs these days when streaming platforms have become the main medium for listening to music, but sales of K-pop albums keep growing thanks to the global expansion of K-pop fandom fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the latest data released by Hyundai Motor Securities, Sunday, some 9.96 million K-pop albums were sold in May solely, up 93 percent from the same period last year.

The best-selling acts were boy groups Seventeen and Tomorrow X Together (TXT), which sold 2.24 million and 1.63 million albums, respectively. They accounted for 40 percent of total sales in May. Trailing behind were trot singer Lim Young-woong (1.14 million), boy band NCT Dream (670,000) and girl group Le Sserafim (410,000).

Among them, Seventeen, TXT and Le Sserafim are represented by the labels under Hybe, home to K-pop behemoth BTS. Hybe artists sold 4.77 million albums altogether, taking up 48 percent of total sales in May.

"About 28.65 million K-pop albums were sold from January to May this year, which is a 38.6 percent year-on-year jump," the brokerage house said.

June sales are projected to be high as well, with BTS selling 2.16 million copies of its latest release, "Proof," on June 10, the first day of its release. This is the first time that a K-pop group has reached the milestone of 2 million albums sold in just one day.

A slew of other prominent stars, such as Nayeon of girl group Twice are also poised to put out their new music offerings later this month.

K-pop act BTS sold more than 2 million copies of its anthology album, "Proof," on June 10, the day of its release. Courtesy of Big Hit Music

Today, most people listen to music on digital streaming platforms, but K-pop fans still buy several copies of physical albums ― sometimes even hundreds of copies ― to help their favorite singers expand their careers by outperforming their rivals in sales. This also increases the chances of meeting their idols face-to-face, as they can exchange their receipts for tickets to fan meeting events. Some of them just love collecting the photos and posters packaged in the albums.

The COVID-19 pandemic is believed to have increased the number of these fans worldwide ― especially in the U.S. and Europe ― who were exposed to K-pop content on global platforms like YouTube and Twitter while they were staying at home.

Many experts also point out that the global health crisis has prompted K-pop lovers to snap up more albums than usual since they could neither attend in-person concerts nor take part in other fan activities due to social distancing rules.

The demand for K-pop concerts is growing faster than expected as well, with the number of global concertgoers reaching 410,000 in May. In May, K-pop acts like NCT 127 and TVXQ staged their performances abroad.

"The total number of attendees at K-pop concerts abroad is expected to hit 1.24 million in the second quarter of this year, which is about 75 percent of the figure for the same period in the pre-pandemic year of 2019," the brokerage house said. "About 61 percent of them will be from Japan and 32 percent will be from the U.S."

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