What caused the recent massive inflation in physical sales?

    I feel inflation of sales was always a thing but now we have like 3 groups doing 5m+


    Seventeen for example went from


    2019 - 656k

    2020 - 1.7m

    2021 - 2.7m

    2022 - 4.1m

    2023 - 6.2m


    Stray kids


    2019 - 400k

    2020 - 720k

    2021 - 1.7m

    2022 - 3.5m

    2022 - 5.5m


    Dream


    2019- 640k

    2020 - 800k

    2021 - 2.1m

    2022 - 2.1m

    2023 - 4.5m


    Seems like for these groups their sales really exploded mostly last year. I wonder what really changed, i personally don't think KPOP is growing and it peaked maybe 1/2 years ago but maybe thats me.


    These groups gained 2m albums onto their 2022 album which seems quite a lot.


    It seems like after coivd is when shit exploded for a lot of groups.


    I might have made a mistake tell if their best selling album that year is different.

  • ForgottenSoul

    Changed the title of the thread from “What caused the sort of recent massive inflation in physical sales?” to “What caused the recent massive inflation in physical sales?”.
  • AllKill VIP

    The inflation in general started from covid era, where fans have nothing to spend on so they spend on physical albums


    The extra inflation after covid era is more controlled, and I might be wrong about this, is from ego of fans wanting to maintain that number, and this is more prevalent for BGs


    I don't see GGs having the same trajectory, they are still getting higher but not on the level of BGs

  • AllKill VIP
    Quote from ForgottenSoul

    peaked maybe 1/2 years ago

    It did. Expect the numbers to drop in 2024.


    I think K-pop exploded internationally during covid more than ever. Noone listens to cds anymore so the albums purchased are more like merchandise and collectibles. Companies now release more versions than ever before and fans eat up all of them.


    Most of the people buying are teens using their parents money or young adults that are still living at home and have minimal expenditure, high disposable income.

    Can't explain in details about Seventeen or Dream, cause I don't follow them closely.


    But last year, Stray Kids' sales increased significantly due to 5 circustances.


    • CASE 143 was a hit in Japan (Billboard reported last year It surpassed over 100 million on-demand streams on the Country) and It's recognition made them growing massively on the market. They went from 400k sales on Oricon in 2022 to 1.9 million in 2023. So they got a big market in their hands last year.
    • in 2022, MANIAC was viral in China (It'a audio has over 1B views on Douyin), It also increased their following there massively. For Maxident, they sold around +900k from China, but for 5-STAR they got around 1.2M in total, so It also helped increasing their sales in 2023.
    • A very important reason: 5-STAR was Stray Kids first album with Global Distribution. Previously, their albums were only sold on US and Korea stores. Since 5-STAR, they started to be distributed even in Oceania and Europe (And It's important to say Stray Kids is comfortably the 3rd biggest K-pop group on Europe).
    • Natural growth in between on other markets too.
    • 5-STAR has one more standard version than the previous 2021-2022 albums.

    From 2020 to 2021 I'd say It's a mix of natural growth from God's Menu impact (in 2021 was the first standard album (NOEASY) they released since God's Menu) + increase of versions and photocards (NOEASY was the first album they started to get individual jewel cases/digipacks) + 11 months of hiatus.

    Also I must add, kpop albums these days have a different meaning to what an album will be from back in the 2000/2010s.


    These days it is more of a collection of photo cards, stickers, posters rather than a bunch of songs to be listened to.


    Fans buy it because it looks cute or like the design. It's like buying pokemon cards or a figurine. The music doesn't matter. They may have bought multiple versions of the album but wouldn't even have streamed the songs on youtube or spotify.

    Edited once, last by L0ok ().

    For SKZ at least, a part of this is that the distribution increased. So albums were made easily available places they didn't use to be so accessible (like Europe which is a very big market for them, they got good distribution here only this year, and the US in 2022). When we saw that JYP finally added official album distribution in countries like France and Germany for the first time, it was clear sales most likely would increase. So because of this + the fact that they gained a lot of traction in China since Maniac and big popularity in Japan after CASE143, plus general excitement for a full album, sales reached all-time high.


    I'm assuming distribution for other groups also got better, and add overall kpop popularity + covid + Chinese/Japanese popularity, and I think those might be the biggest factors.


    But the sales boom is calming down now for all groups it seems.

    489d17e4419016411b36dad88b64df8ffff25ff5.jpg   adfe19c6c403b5343d1458ffba827afe2cf24613.jpg  ae106ac2dca5c430cc8c469d7da001a0ea28bf39.jpg  a373bcf44bc8f3c52101cd2e099b3f0a6598eb9d.jpg

    Love 1
  • AllKill VIP

    I really thought the huge spike was due to Covid, people at home, less things to spend on = more disposable income etc


    But what's strange to me is that it's continuing through 2023 and possibly 2024. Many countries are experiencing various inflation, currency and especially "cost of living" crises which are supposedly meaning people have far less discretionary spending because everything else is much more expensive. Japan, one of the countries named here, isn't immune to this. The value of the Yen is toilet right now and they are also having a cost of living problem with high housing/rent costs and high prices on living necessities.


    Yet, amidst this, people are still throwing money at record numbers on physical kpop stuff.

    Quote from AyanEva

    Lots of versions. The number of versions is getting a little wild at times.

    It’s not versions that’s causing increased sales. EXO exodus had like 22 version or something crazy like that. EXO album before that didn’t and after that also didn’t and they all sold as expected.


    It’s the decreased price of albums e.g the digipak and increased distribution (literally I can walk to target or Walmart and buy these albums and Gaon counts ALL these shipments so imagine) that’s caused the sales boom.

    I think the most popular and well known reason is increase in different albums and various verisons of photocards, sites like makestar sometimes have an event with an artist where you can only get a special/super rare photo card in a chance to get a meet and greet video call with that said artist or idol.


    Not sure for other groups, but Seventeen recently released all older albums from their debut to most popular fan favourites that helped with a lot of people buying more albums to get the inclusions or album of their choice.


    But ofc there was a massive inflation during covid that helped' with album sales.

    1) boost during covid, post-covid fanbases worked extra hard to keep/improve records from the higher base year during covid. This is particular true for C-bar (usually solo) which aim to outdo each release and compete among themselves


    2) better global distribution


    3) more fansign,videocall and lucky draw events + photocards. Please look at how much photocards one era could have - NMIXX, IVE, ITZY etc


    4) more versions including member cover for regular versions, bringing back the jewel case/digipack which are cheaper +new SMART / QR / WEVerse albums. Those definitely boosted the sales

    Distribution, COVID, the crazy amount of photocards, the fact that you have to buy a ton of albums to have better chances to join a fansign videocall are legit reasons and have helped a lot. But the different fandoms' desire to outdo one another and break the record was the biggest motivation.

    I hope people have got it out of their system and stop doing that because it's weird to have hundreds of thousands of albums thrown away somewhere just for a record.

    It makes the achievement way less impressive this way.

    Quote from RunOutOfIdeas

    Distribution, COVID, the crazy amount of photocards, the fact that you have to buy a ton of albums to have better chances to join a fansign videocall are legit reasons and have helped a lot. But the different fandoms' desire to outdo one another and break the record was the biggest motivation.

    I hope people have got it out of their system and stop doing that because it's weird to have hundreds of thousands of albums thrown away somewhere just for a record.

    It makes the achievement way less impressive this way.

    Oohh! I feel for the parents' pockets. Ouch!! :pepe-bonk:

    >>> 2022.06.10 <<<IMG-4283.jpg

    Sad 1

    More versions

    More PCs

    Better distribution

    Cheaper pricing through digipacks (also an impact of better distribution for pricing)

    Covid resulting in the expansion of online fan calls for the global market which means fans mass buy in every territory nowadays

    China

    I agree with the points made about kpop growth during and post pandemic + distribution. But also, I'm under the impression that in the last few years a lot more focus is put on album sales than before. I don't know, maybe I wasn't too deep into kpop circles, but were album sales numbers as scrutinised and weaponised for fanwars prior to 2018 as they are nowadays? I feel like the competition element comes into play as motivating factor for fans buying more albums.

    Quote from butterbutterfly

    I agree with the points made about kpop growth during and post pandemic + distribution. But also, I'm under the impression that in the last few years a lot more focus is put on album sales than before. I don't know, maybe I wasn't too deep into kpop circles, but were album sales numbers as scrutinised and weaponised for fanwars prior to 2018 as they are nowadays? I feel like the competition element comes into play as motivating factor for fans buying more albums.

    Yes they were, people used to say bp only had yt views before The Album even though they were selling 200k+ back then


    Album sales used to be seen as legit measure of popularity, bg stans were so annoying back then

    Maybe things like this.


    Thread
    SM exposed for allegedly committing sajaegi by faking RIIZE's 1.01 million album sales in their first week of release
    twitter.com/pannchoa/status/17…aWmVCCYTDbMaxSktX5mg&s=19

    1. RIIZE's Get A Guitar

    1st week sale - 1.01M
    Total sales 1.09M

    Circle - Physical albums shipment count
    Hanteo - Merchant sales count

    2. The agency told the record labels
    "We're going to hold this many events for you, so you can go ahead and register this many orders already"
    So the even before opening said events (lucky draw, fansigns, etc.), the record labels already created more "orders" than the actual amount of "sales"

    3. The reality is not…
    thebadguy

    There is a part that is thanks to the globalization of kpop, better distribution (twice albums for example were only distributed on korea in 2 or 3 stores, now they distribute internationally with a lot of stores), better strategies like more time for pre orders and more versions, cheap digipacks, photocards, etc but denying the shady side of this with really fraudulent strategies with the chinese cbars, overshipping albums that stay on warehouses but are reported as sold is just insane.


    The sales of groups like seventeen, stray kids, nct dream and 127, aespa, red velvet, ive, newjeans, lesserafim, itzy all have that fraudulent side no matter how much their fans cry about it. Like from where does a group like itzy can sell 1M of albums just like twice?

    Lmfao ignoring Blackpink going from 300k to 1.5 and then 2.5 m :pepe-joy:

    Quote from Dreamer95

    Lmfao ignoring Blackpink going from 300k to 1.5 and then 2.5 m :pepe-joy:

    Ignore the context of literally massive breaks and no albums in between.. you loving being a dumbass dont you.


    I think growing from 1.5m to 2.5m after not releasing nothing in between and still growing fans is a bit different.. A lot of these groups release many albums a year and always comeback.


    The Album and BP had 2 years between each other.

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