Why does NCT 127 struggle with Hanteo sales?

Quote from Breaded Honey Turkey (912)

Back then, theres less store affiliated with HT. It would be make sense if BTS the one have the largest gap because they have a lot of international fans and more unaffiliated stores want to sell their albums. Even last year MOTS is one of the best sellers in pure sales in us and jp. Suddenly other less popular group than BTS have bigger gap doesn't make sense.

Due to HT new policy , its harder to find a kpop store that isn't affiliated with HT. Which store/part of fandom/area/country is 127 selling exclusively for this big gap between hanteo and gaon? Sm overproduce 127 album bc they thought 127 have the same selling power as dream. Obv not dreams always outselling 127

As always, its okay if BTS did it but weird if other group does it because they are less popular than BTS.

You know what, what you said is the same as what other fans said to BTS when they start rising.

People just getting to know 127. Do you really think these people care about Hanteo ? No

NCT got shit so much here and people still got audicity to called anons section are mostly SM stans.

No, I forgot that SM stans hate NCT because they are flop and an embarrasment to them

Quote from Breaded Rhubarb Turkey (245)

NCT got shit so much here and people still got audicity to called anons section are mostly SM stans.

No, I forgot that SM stans hate NCT because they are flop and an embarrasment to them

NCTzens on this site are mostly quiet and don't want to start fights. And that's nice but it's kind of a problem when it comes to protecting nct from antis (even on the k-pop section). Of course, we've got brave representatives of our fandom like the three numbers, the quirky and the clown.

The part of your text which i have bolded in my quote has surely changed since 2020 so don't worry about that

Quote from Breaded Rhubarb Turkey (245)

As always, its okay if BTS did it but weird if other group does it because they are less popular than BTS.

You know what, what you said is the same as what other fans said to BTS when they start rising.

People just getting to know 127. Do you really think these people care about Hanteo ? No

I'm guessing you don't understand what they meant, let me rephrase

BTS - Persona (album with the highest gaps between gaon and hanteo) came out in 2019. In 2019 there's not much hanteo affiliated store outside sk. So it make sense that they have a big gap

NCT album, idk which one you talked about, came out in 2021 (cmiiw). In 2021 hanteo affiliated stores has increase. (It's one of the reason BTS have lesser gap than previous year)

That's why the bigger gap from NCT is confusing/not making sense.

More stores that affiliated with hanteo = lesser gap

Quote from Breaded Honey Turkey (912)

Back then, theres less store affiliated with HT. It would be make sense if BTS the one have the largest gap because they have a lot of international fans and more unaffiliated stores want to sell their albums. Even last year MOTS is one of the best sellers in pure sales in us and jp. Suddenly other less popular group than BTS have bigger gap doesn't make sense.

Due to HT new policy , its harder to find a kpop store that isn't affiliated with HT. Which store/part of fandom/area/country is 127 selling exclusively for this big gap between hanteo and gaon? Sm overproduce 127 album bc they thought 127 have the same selling power as dream. Obv not dreams always outselling 127

It's very easy to find kpop from a store not affiliated with HT if you live in the US. Target, Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Walmart are massive retailers in the US and not Hanteo certified. (You might get a Hanteo-certified retailer if they have a storefront through Amazon but Amazon itself is not certified and does sell some kpop albums direct to consumers, depending on disto.)

Why pay an assload for shipping from Somebody's Big Kpop Shop overseas when I can order through Target, get free shipping and an extra 5% off with my Redcard? (Plus a special version!)

With that in mind, Billboard has recorded over 265K pure album sales on Sticker (i.e. 260K albums that won't show up on the Hanteo chart), with 50K of that coming this year. This is a 9-month album that's still in the Billboard album sales charts so there's clearly demand in non-Hanteo stores.

As for Dream "always" outselling 127? Nope.

It's hard to put them head to head because Dream have had fewer releases, but any time they release in the same year, neither unit is really outselling the other consistently. What is worth noting is that both units had huge catalog sales after the 2018 and 2020 NCT all-unit events. If you look at many Dream numbers pre-2020 on release, 127 outperforms them initially - however, the Dream back catalog picked up substantially with increased sales in 2020-present. This is partly because Dream has less releases so the fandom was also trying to talk to SM about why Dream should have a full album by showing their buying power, which is smart, and partly from the increased exposure they get outside of Korea (their focus) by the all-unit events. The all-unit events lifted every sub-unit's sales afterward, with the pandemic elevating all sub-unit sales with the stuck-at-home exposure + Resonance event.

NCT 127 has had greater sales from Western countries and has charted on the U.S. Hot 200, Top Album Sales and Top Current Album Sales chart since Regular-Irregular with its standard releases (repacks don't get counted). NCT Dream just charted for the first time with Glitch Mode and also charted on the Top Albums and Current Albums charts for the first time.

Additionally, 127 has charted albums (physical and/or digital, depending on the country and sometimes both) in Belgium, Canada, France, the UK, Spain, Australia, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Austria, Croatia, Finland, Germany and Switzerland.

Dream has charted in France, Poland and Hungary, and recently with Glitch Mode, also Belgium, Croatia and Finland.

I'm too lazy rn to look up the exact Billboard sales numbers, but snagged the Top Album Sales charts weeks..

*Numbers are longer if only looking at the Current Albums Sales Chart (i.e. not back catalog albums) - 2, 5, 58 and 34 respectively.

*Glitch Mode is the only Dream title and not in this list since there's no 127 parallel for 2022 yet. It sold 15,000 units.

Tl, dr: both of these NCT sub-units are kicking ass.

Data is from koreansalestwt.blogspot.com and Billboard.

Quote from Stewed Mustard & Thyme Yak (828)

Of course, we've got brave representatives of our fandom like the three numbers, the quirky and the clown.

Come on, I haven't had the clown dp for MONTHS

Quote from Deep-Fried Corn Studded DooDoo (888)

I'm guessing you don't understand what they meant, let me rephrase

BTS - Persona (album with the highest gaps between gaon and hanteo) came out in 2019. In 2019 there's not much hanteo affiliated store outside sk. So it make sense that they have a big gap

NCT album, idk which one you talked about, came out in 2021 (cmiiw). In 2021 hanteo affiliated stores has increase. (It's one of the reason BTS have lesser gap than previous year)

That's why the bigger gap from NCT is confusing/not making sense.

More stores that affiliated with hanteo = lesser gap

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there may be "more affiliated stores" but there's still not that many. You can see the list on their website. It's only about 100 retailers.

I live in the US and I've never bought a single album through a Hanteo retailer because I'm not paying out the ass for shipping like a fucking idiot just so it counts on some random ass chart.

Quote from Deep-Fried Corn Studded DooDoo (888)

I'm guessing you don't understand what they meant, let me rephrase

BTS - Persona (album with the highest gaps between gaon and hanteo) came out in 2019. In 2019 there's not much hanteo affiliated store outside sk. So it make sense that they have a big gap

NCT album, idk which one you talked about, came out in 2021 (cmiiw). In 2021 hanteo affiliated stores has increase. (It's one of the reason BTS have lesser gap than previous year)

That's why the bigger gap from NCT is confusing/not making sense.

More stores that affiliated with hanteo = lesser gap

Display More

There’s still a bag gap on Butter tho. This isn’t surprising to me given BTS’ global fandom and the variance of charts, but I just find it interesting that everyone is so consumed by NCT’s “impossible” gap when there are other large gaps in the same chart.

I never see a million think pieces about the nearly 650k BTS gap because people assume BTS is a large, popular group so it makes sense they would be global and this have that variance in their sales. (And I agree this is an obvious one. I’m not challenging the gap because it makes sense to me - just pointing out they too have a massive gap.)

The issue seems to be more about “I didn’t think THIS GROUP would be successful,” and then looking for ways to deflate the achievement.

It’s the same line of thinking that has people challenging The Boyz numbers or SKZ numbers or Ateez numbers only when they are more successful than people expect them to be.

There are gaps of 200-300k in the chart, 412k for SKZ and then the BTS gap but only the NCT one is the obsession. (Just like they only went hard on SKZ sales was when they charged onto the top of Billboard, which rather gets to my main point that people only freak out about numbers when it upends the narrative.)

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