BTS and Blackpink fans boost physical album sales and look for other ways to support their K-pop favourites during coronavirus pandemic

K-pop fans cannot go to concerts or take part in other activities, so they are showing artists how much they care for them by buying their albums

This ‘revenge spending’ not only shows appreciation for the singers’ music, but it guarantees stars continue to have successful careers

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Fans of Blackpink are increasingly buying more of the K-pop girl group’s albums as they look for other ways of supporting them during the Covid-19 pandemic. Photo: YG Entertainment

Published: 10:15pm, 25 Nov 2020Updated: 4:40am, 26 Nov 2020

By Dong Sun-hwa

With the meteoric rise of digital streaming services, there seems to be no reason to buy physical albums these days.

But sales of K-pop albums have defied the trend. Last year, total sales of the 400 most popular albums reached 25 million. This year, the figure is expected to surge to 35 million, according to Gaon Chart, which tracks album sales in the country and overseas.

Gaon, which the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Music Content Industry Association launched in 2010, is considered one of South Korea’s most credible album/streaming charts.

Sales have been steeply increasing since 2016, when BTS (above) began selling a massive number of albums. Photo: Big Hit Entertainment

“According to our data, over 30 million albums were sold from January to October this year, but the number would certainly exceed 35 million by the end of 2020 thanks to BTS, which just dropped its fresh album BE (Deluxe Edition) on November 20,” said Kim Jin-woo, head researcher at Gaon. “The septet usually sells more than 4 million copies of each album.”

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