Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, K-pop album sales grow over 64% in 2020 compared to 2019, breaking the record for being the biggest growth in kpop history with selling over 40 million albums in 2020 according to the Korean Association of Music Contents.
“The increase in album sales since 2017 has significantly impacted overseas shipments,” Kim Jinwoo, a researcher at Gaon Chart, commented. “The result reflects the kind of retaliatory consumption phenomenon that occurs when external fan activities such as concerts are impossible due to COVID-19 and the continued expansion of global fandom,” Kim added. It means that kpop is heading towards to securing global fandom. Even some agency like SM has doing localization with Super Junior-M, EXO-M, WayV, and another upcoming NCT unit based on NCT conference in 2016. Also JYPE with NiziU in Japan and Big Hit's upcoming Japanese group.
Here are the kpop agencies with the highest album sales in 2020 according to Gaon:
BIG HIT ENTERTAINMENT
SM ENTERTAINMENT
JYP ENTERTAINMENT
PLEDIS ENTERTAINMENT
YG ENTERTAINMENT
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