With the explosive global boom of K-pop, what was once an impossible feat is now made routine as idol groups can easily sell a million albums these days. 

There used to be a time when a vast majority of the album sales were from domestic sales in South Korea, but that is not the case anymore as album sales to international markets have increased. The K-pop industry is booming. With fans all over the world, albums are selling exponentially more than before, and there's no sign of slowing down!

Hanteo Chart is a Korean music chart that has been collecting data on K-pop album sales over the years. Recently, data was compiled from Hanteo listing the top-selling K-pop artists from 2003 until July 24, 2022.

According to the chart, BTS came in first place, followed by Seventeen, EXO, NCT Dream, and TXT in the top 5. So here are the top 11 K-pop idol artists with the highest album sales since 2003.

1. BTS -  23 million copies

2. Seventeen - 12 million copies

3. EXO - 9.7 million copies

4. NCT Dream - 7.3 million copies

5. TXT - 4.04 million copies

6. NCT 127 - 4 million copies

7. Stray Kids - 3.9 million copies

8. TWICE - 3.87 million copies

9. ENHYPEN - 3.86 million copies

10. GOT7 - 3.68 million copies

11. NCT - 3.60 million copies

Netizens commented, "BTS is really amazing," "TWICE is the only girl group on this list, wow," "Woah, ENHYPEN are rookies but they're on this list," "I love TWICE," "It's all the groups I know that are on this list," and "I'm really impressed with ENHYPEN on this list."