K-pop Albums Near Last Year's Annual Sales in 8 Months with 78.87 Million Copies Sold

Cumulative Sales of 78.87 Million Units from January to August
Equivalent to 98% of Last Year's 80 Million Sales
Growth Slows... Sharp Decline in Album Exports to China

K-pop album sales have nearly reached last year's annual sales volume in just eight months. Circle Chart announced on the 12th that "the cumulative sales from January to August amounted to 78.87 million copies, approximately 25 million more than the same period last year," adding, "this corresponds to 98% of last year's sales volume of about 80 million copies." Circle Chart is a government-certified music chart that officially receives K-pop data from domestic and global music service platforms.

NCT's album 'Golden Age,' which recorded the highest sales last month (Photo source=Kyobo Bookstore website)

Last month's album sales totaled 8.94 million copies. Compared to July, which recorded the highest monthly sales ever at 14.3 million copies, this represents a 37.5% decrease. Due to the absence of major artist comebacks, there were no 'Million Sellers' (albums selling over 1 million copies). However, this figure is 34.3% higher than last year. In August of last year, 6.66 million copies were sold. The artist who sold the most albums last month was NCT from SM Entertainment, with 956,000 copies sold. Seven companies, including SM, HYBE, JYP, High Up Entertainment, IST Entertainment, Wake One Company, and KQ Entertainment, produced artists in the 'Top 10' by sales volume.

Circle Chart stated, "The growth trend, which showed sales exceeding 10 million copies for four consecutive months recently, has somewhat slowed down," adding, "while the apparent reason for the sales decline is the absence of Million Seller albums, it is necessary to closely monitor the correlation with the Chinese economic downturn as album exports to China have sharply decreased since June." Investment banks forecast that China will show a GDP growth rate in the 4% range this year. Private consumption is also not recovering easily. According to customs trade statistics, China ranked third in album export destinations in the first half of the year (22.64 million USD). China had been the solid second place until last year but was overtaken by the United States (25.51 million USD). The first place is Japan (48.52 million USD).

Meanwhile, in the album distribution market share category last month, Kakao Entertainment ranked first with 53.7%. YG Plus followed with 20.2%, Dreamus Company with 11.6%, and Genie Music with 10.9%.