Ⓒ JoongAng Ilbo / JoongAng Ilbo Japanese version2022.03.30 07:27
The popularity of BTS (BTS), an idol group that represents K-POP, is worldwide. So which country consumes the most BTS? It turned out that the first place was Japan, which is not South Korea.
This is the result of JoongAng Ilbo’s analysis of the fandoms of major K-POP groups for the past year (March 2021 to February 2022) using YouTube’s music chart statistics. BTS official music videos, user-produced content (UCC) using official music, lyrics videos, etc. were played a total of 15.1 billion times during this period, of which more than 2 billion times occurred in Japan and “BTS consumption” It became the first place in the country. South Korea, the home of BTS, climbed to 6th place with only 766,800 times. Only 5% of the total.
Most of the eight team / individual consumers who recorded more than 1 billion views were outside Korea. Following BTS, BLACKPINK (black pink, total 8.59 billion times) is second in the K-POP group, which has the most music videos played on YouTube. The place that paid the most attention to this group was India (820 million times). TWICE (TWICE, Japan), Stray Kids (Stray Kids, Mexico), ITZY (Idge, Japan), SEVENTEEN (Seventeen, Japan), etc. all overwhelmed Korea in overseas views. South Korea was the only country with the highest number of views for IU and aespa.
Encouraged by such internationalization, record sales volume is also increasing rapidly. Last year, record sales exceeded 50 million for the first time in history. Gaon Chart Chief Researcher Kim Jin Woo said, “About half of the total album sales volume is overseas export volume.” “The number of K-POP album export nations has increased from 23 countries in 2012 to 88 countries in 2021.” did. According to the Korea Customs Service, records exported by South Korea last year amounted to 220.85 million dollars (regarding 27.3 billion yen).
The globalization of K-POP is not a coincidence. Choi Bong-hyun, senior researcher at the Institute of Industrial Research, said, “BTS did not suddenly fall from the sky one day.” He also said, “We were able to establish a cycle of music products that leads to development, creation, music activities, entertainment activities, rest, and creation, centered on entertainment companies, and in this process we were able to become globally competitive.” explained.
The road opened by BTS provided a guide to other K-POP groups. JYP Entertainment’s eight-member boy group Stray Kids topped the US Billboard album chart “Billboard 200” released on the 28th (local time). Stray Kids has become the third K-POP artist to take first place on the Billboard 200, following BTS and SuperM.
The Billboard 200 is ranked according to the sales volume and number of views of albums released in the United States. The mini-album “Oddinary” released by Stray Kids on the 18th sold 103,000 real albums in the United States alone until the 24th.