RM’s first solo album 'Indigo' reaches No. 3 on Billboard 200

Promotional image for RM's "Indigo" [BIG HIT MUSIC]

BTS leader RM’s first solo album “Indigo” ranked No. 3 on the Billboard 200, according to the chart on Monday.

This makes him the first member from the boy band to enter the chart’s top 10 as a solo act. BTS announced a hiatus from its group activities in June, and its members have been making official solo debuts since. RM was the third to release solo music, following J-Hope and Jin.

After dropping on Dec. 2, “Indigo” ranked No. 15 on Dec. 17’s Billboard 200, but failed to make the chart the following week.

However, when the physical CDs of “Indigo” were released on Dec. 16, the album placed at No. 3 thanks to sales. This is the highest rank on the Billboard 200 achieved by a solo K-pop artist. The former highest record was by Nayeon of girl group Twice, who reached No. 7 with her first solo album “Im Nayeon.”

J-Hope, who was the first BTS member to officially drop solo music, reached No. 17 with his album “Jack In The Box” back in July.

The Billboard 200 albums chart takes into account physical CD sales as well as the number of online streams and downloads converted to count as CD sales. One-thousand five-hundred on-demand streams are counted as one streaming equivalent album (SEA), and 10 track downloads are counted as one track equivalent album (TEA).

“Indigo” sold 83,000 albums in the latest tally; 79,000 in physical CD sales and 4,000 in SEA. There were almost no TEA registered.

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