Four agencies dominate year-end music sales rankings

K-pop

Published: 16 Jan. 2022, 16:49 Updated: 16 Jan. 2022, 17:49

Four agencies dominate year-end music sales rankings

SM Entertainment's boy band NCT 127 album “Sticker” was the second most sold album of the year, according to Gaon Music Chart Sunday. Nineteen of the top 20 selling albums in 2021 were by artists from one of the four major K-pop agencies — HYBE, SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment and JYP Entertainment. [ILGAN SPORTS]

The presence of major K-pop agencies — HYBE, SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment and JYP Entertainment — is mushrooming as the four powerhouses dominate the booming K-pop album industry.

According to year-end data provided by Korea’s music sales tracker Gaon Chart on Sunday, the chart’s top 400 albums sold a total of 57,089,160 copies in 2021, up 428 percent compared to sales five years ago which recorded 10,808,921 copies sold.

Of the top 400 albums sold this year, albums by artists under HYBE, SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment and JYP Entertainment accounted for 60.9 percent, up two percentage points from the same data collected five years ago.

SM Entertainment, which represents groups such as boy band NCT and girl group aespa, accounted for 29.5 percent of the total year-end album sales, selling 16,831,219 copies.

Following SM, HYBE accounted for 16.6 percent of the total sales by selling a total of 9,452,317 copies last year.

HYBE represents artists such as BTS and Tomorrow X Together.

JYP Entertainment, which saw its first million-seller album last year with boy band Stray Kids’ “NOEASY,” sold a total of 5,838,140 copies last year, accounting for 10.2 percent of the total sales.

YG Entertainment, home to girl group Blackpink, sold 2,613,767 copies, accounting for 4.6 percent.

The four agencies and their subsidiaries dominated the top 20 selling albums list by Gaon Chart released last week, claiming 19 of the list’s spots. The list ranks the 20 albums that saw the highest sales in all of 2021.

Ranked first was HYBE’s BTS album “Butter” with 2,999,407 copies sold, followed by SM Entertainment’s NCT 127 album “Sticker” with 2,427,559 copies. NCT Dream’s “Hot Sauce” placed third with 2,097,185 copies sold.

Though the album sales are largely dominated by major agencies, experts say that some medium or small-sized entertainment agencies are progressing as well.

“In the past, the smaller entertainment agencies used to be completely overshadowed by the big four [HYBE, SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment and JYP Entertainment],” Kim Jin-woo, lead researcher at Gaon Chart told Yonhap News Sunday.

“But now, some smaller agencies have grown their own competitive edge in the market to produce successful outcomes.”

One such K-pop group is Ateez.

Debuting in 2018, Ateez is a boy group under a smaller agency that is displaying rapid growth in popularity worldwide.

It is also the only group under an agency that is not affiliated with the four major powerhouses to be included on Gaon Chart’s top 20 selling albums list.

Ateez's “Zero: Fever Part.3” ranked 18th on the Gaon Chart’s top 20 selling albums of the year, selling 737,124 copies last year.

Ateez is an eight-member boy band represented by KQ Entertainment. KQ Entertainment currently only houses Ateez and singer Heo Young Saeng.

BY LEE JIAN [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]