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| ▲This photo, provided by Bighit Music, shows BTS. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
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| ▲This photo, provided by Researcher Kim, shows Album sales chart. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
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| ▲This photo, provided by YG, shows Blackpink. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
SEOUL, Dec. 24 (Yonhap) -- This year's K-pop physical albums are on the verge of reaching a record of 80 million copies thanks to BTS and girl groups.
Album sales of top 400 albums from the first week to the 50th week (Dec.10) of 2022 were 74,195,554 copies, up 29.9% from last year's sales (57,089,160 copies), according to the Circle Chart on Saturday,
After the album sales surpassed 20 million copies for the first time in 2018, sales of the top 400 albums have been on a steep rise; 24.59 million in 2019, 41.7 million in 2020, and 57.08 million in 2021.
BTS sold 6.07 million albums this year, topping the cumulative record sales, even though they focused on individual activities.
Kim Jin-woo, a senior researcher at Circle Chart, said, "Jin and RM's solo albums this year have sold 1.03 million and 680,000 copies, respectively, and considering the sales of the remaining new members' solo albums, BTS's enlistment will have limited negative impact on the sales market next year."
Following BTS, Stray Kids came in second with 5.83 million copies and Seventeen third with 5.46 million copies.
The increase in sales of albums this year can be attributed to the growth of girl groups' global fandom.
While album slaes of male singers accounted for a larger proportion of album sales, sales of female singers also increased noticeably, contributing to the overall growth of the sales.
The total album sales of female singers accounted for 32.6% this year, up 16.5% from last year's sales.
The percentage of sales by male singers was 66.2% this year, down 17.3% from last year's record.
Moreover, male singers with record sales of more than 1 million copies was 11 teams this year, one team less compared to last year, while the number of female singers who passed such record increased significantly from one team last year to ten teams this year.
Girl group BLACKPINK sold 2.82 million copies, coming in fifth in overall album sales and also the first among female singers.
Ive sold 2.6 million copies, placing second among female singers, and Red Velvet third with 2.12 million copies.
Researcher Kim said, "Due to the rapid growth of K-pop music market in the last three years, the growth of K-pop album sales might slow down next year, but the growth of K-pop will continue," and predicted, "Girl groups are most likely to drive the growth of K-pop next year."
(This article is translated from Korean to English by Jiwon Woo.)
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