K-pop girl group NewJeans sells over 310,000 copies of EP 'New Jeans' in one week

Girl group NewJeans [ADOR]

Girl group NewJeans set a new record for a debuting K-pop girl group, selling over 310,000 copies of its first EP in the past week, said its agency Ador on Monday.

The girl group’s debut EP “New Jeans” dropped digitally on Aug. 1. Its physical copies were made available for sale on Aug. 8.

“New Jeans” sold precisely 311,271 copies over the last week, according to Ador. This surpassed the previous record held by girl group Le Sserafim, whose debut EP “Fearless” sold 307,450 copies in its first week after debuting in May.

Album sales in the first week after being released, referred to as chodong in Korean, is considered an important indicator of a K-pop act’s popularity and the loyalty of its fandom.

The EP’s four tracks — “Attention,” "Hype boy,” “Hurt” and “Cookie” — all ranked on Spotify Korea’s top 10. As of Monday, “Attention” is No. 1 on Spotify Korea and Melon.

NewJeans’ debut received the spotlight as a girl group produced by Min Hee-jin, a former art director under K-pop powerhouse SM Entertainment and behind its top acts Girls’ Generation, SHINee, Exo, f(x) and Red Velvet. She joined HYBE in 2019 and established her label ADOR. NewJeans is the first act from the new agency.

NewJeans has five members: Hanni, Minji, Danielle, Haerin and Hyein. Danielle is Korean-Australian, and Hanni is of Vietnamese descent and grew up in Australia. The rest of the members are Korean. Its members were first revealed through NewJeans’ music videos uploaded on July 22.

BY HALEY YANG [yang.hyunjoo@joongang.co.kr]