The K-culture, Hallyu Wave, continued its global success this year following last year.
- BLACKPINK's Jennie Becomes 1st Korean Female Soloist To Chart A Song For 15 Weeks On Billboard Hot 100
- March Girl Group Member Brand Reputation Rankings Announced
- BLACKPINK’s Jennie’s “SOLO” Becomes 1st Female K-Pop Solo Artist MV To Hit 1 Billion Views
2022 was another triumphing year for the K-content industry, with more K-content garnering much attention and K-pop groups receiving much love. In particular, this year was the year of K-pop girl groups, with new rookie groups dominating the music charts in South Korea.
Recently, Circle Chart released the album sales review for 2022, showing the rapid increase in the sales of girl group albums. There has been a profound increase in overall album sales in just a year.
Overall, the album physical album sales have been increasing every year from 2013 to 2022, except for a slight dip in 2014. This year, album sales increased by 30% compared to last year. The graph above shows album sales by the top 400 albums in each year from 2013 to 2022.
The chart above shows the top artists who sold the most album from weeks 1 to 50 this year. At number 1 is BTS, followed by Stray Kids, Seventeen, NCT Dream, BLACKPINK, TXT, ENHYPEN, IVE, NCT 127, Red Velvet, ITZY, aespa, TWICE, TREASURE, and LE SSERAFIM.
This year, Stray Kids had the highest increase in sales among male artists, with an increase of about 3.2 million album sales compared to 2021.
From week 1 to week 50, the cumulative sales market share by male singers based on the top 400 albums was 12.4% for BTS, 11.9% for Stray Kids, and 11.1% for Seventeen. For reference, the share of male artists in the same period last year was 15.8% for BTS, 5.8% for Stray Kids, and 8.3% for Seventeen.
With the boom of K-pop girl groups, there has been a great increase in girl group album sales. For reference, IVE had the highest increase in sales among female artists, with an increase of about 2.4 million album sales compared to 2021.
From week 1 to week 50, the cumulative album sales market share by female singers based on the TOP 400 was BLACKPINK 11.7%, IVE 10.8%, and Red Velvet 8.8%. For reference, during the same period last year, IVE's market share was 2.3%, and Red Velvet's was 5.2%.
From the 1st week to the 50th week of 2022, the male-to-female idol group ratio of cumulative album sales was 66.2% male group idols and 32.6% female group idols. Compared to the same period last year, the market share for male groups' album sales decreased by 17.3% from 83.5% to 66.2%, while female groups' album sales market share increased by 16.5% from 16.1% to 32.6%. This shows the tremendous increase in album sales by female idol groups in 2022.
Source: Allkpop
