Aespa debut on Spotify and Ripia's last thread inspired me to create this thread. I guess people generally understand internationally as the same as "in the west", but here please understand internationally as any country outside Korea
I think fandom-wise NCT 127 and Dream have beaten EXO for over a year now, and Aespa certainly beats Red Velvet
But looking at their stream status things start to get more blurry. Red Velvet seems to have more listeners than Aespa, plus Red Velvet has Spotify hits Psycho (300 million) Bad Boy 200 million and other 3 songs with over 100 million streams
EXO seems to be a bit stronger on Spotify than NCT 127 despite their inactivity. I realized NCT 127 has only one song with over 100 million streams and a second one very close to 100 million (Kick it with 100 million), EXO has 6, including one song with over 200 million (Love Shot). NCT Dream has none so far (Boom is closer to 98 million), but their last comebacks did very poorly so I don't see them reaching 100 million either, although Hot Sauce can get there eventually. From NCT U we have boss (109 million).
On the new Circle digital page seems like RV and EXO have the only recurrent hits from SM too (Love Shot and Psycho): https://circlechart.kr/page_chart/global.circle?termGbn=day
But to be fair Aespa is a newer group so they, of course, can't have last impact hits yet, I'm sure Next Level will easily become a recurrent hit too. It's still at a very high position (35) 1 year after its release.
So I guess that's about it. Red Velvet and EXO are the most popular SM groups, and Aespa and NCT 127/Dream are the ones with the bigger fandoms. If they will surpass RV and EXO's popularity... I guess we shall see