Monthly K-pop CD sales surpass 10 million for first time

The best-selling release of July 2022 was girl group aespa's EP "Girls," which sold more than 1.64 million copies according to Circle Chart. [SM ENTERTAINMENT]

Monthly K-pop CD sales surpassed 10 million for the first time, according to local album sales tracker Circle Chart (formerly known as Gaon Chart).

According to head researcher Kim Jin-woo of Circle Chart on Monday, physical K-pop album sales in July increased by 40.2 percent compared to the previous month. The top 400 albums on the chart sold over 10.8 million copies combined; a 116.8 percent increase compared to July of 2021.

This marks the first time for K-pop album sales to surpass 10 million copies in a single month since Circle Chart's predecessor Gaon Chart launched in 2010,

The best-selling release of July was girl group aespa's EP "Girls," which sold more than 1.64 million copies. Boy band Enhypen's EP "Manifesto : Day 1" sold approximately 1.39 million copies; boy band Seventeen's "Sector 17" 1.33 million; followed by boy band Ateez, girl group ITZY, trot singers Kim Ho-joong and Youngtak, J-Hope of boy band BTS, BTS and STAYC.

Between January and July of this year, over 46 million K-pop CDs have been sold; 1.5 million more than the same period last year.

"As K-pop idol groups' fandoms are expanding globally, [CD] sales are increasing to a level that we had never seen before," said head researcher Kim.

"Like [trot singer] Lim Young-woong, [trot] mostly sees domestic sales," he added. "As Kim Ho-joong and Youngtak sold over a million combined, there has been good news for the Korean CD market both globally and domestically."

While most of the top-selling albums of July were new releases from that month, sales of albums that were released earlier accounted for more than 10 percent of the total. Kim analyzed that more international fans are discovering K-pop or new artists, leading them to buy older releases.

"The influx of more global fans will be a lasting force for the physical CD market's growth," he said.

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