Best selling albums of 2024 first half and biggest sales drops after the fraudulent era

  • The time of the year has come folks, I was waiting the last gaon update of the first half to have the panorama of sales after the fraudulent era of inflated sales came to an end in the last quarter of 2023, so let's get straight to the data.


    Top 10 best selling albums of 2024 until june:

    1. Ive - Ive Switch: 1,691,936
    2. Gidle - 2: 1,686,856
    3. Twice - With You-th: 1,237,984
    4. Aespa - Armageddon: 1,168,907
    5. Lesserafim - Easy: 1,163,827
    6. Newjeans - How Sweet: 1,085,355
    7. Newjeans - Supernatural: 1,021,730‬
    8. Nmixx - Fe3O4: Break: 780,429
    9. Illit - Super Real Me: 668,336
    10. Babymonster - BabyMons7er: 582,797

    For comparison, the top 10 of the first half of 2023 was this:

    1. Aespa - MY WORLD: 2,018,429
    2. Twice - READY TO BE: 1,687,758
    3. Ive - I've IVE: 1,578,495
    4. Newjeans - OMG: 1,573,475
    5. Lesserafim - UNFORGIVEN: 1,513,834
    6. Gidle - I feel: 1,161,125
    7. Nmixx - expergo: 956,319
    8. Stayc - Teddy Bear: 404,798
    9. Kep1er - LOVESTRUCK!: 177,900
    10. Got the beat - Stamp On It: 171,335

    And as the only user brave enough to call out the fraudulent sales we were witnessing not so long ago I was also expecting all those girl groups release to see how their albums sales perform after it, so here is the list of biggest drop of sales:

    1. Itzy's Born to Be: 52.93%
    2. Newjeans' Supernatural: 52.31‬%
    3. Newjeans' How Sweet: 49.34%
    4. Aespa's Armageddon: 45.5‬%
    5. Red Velvet's Chill Kill: 41.67%
    6. Aespa's Drama: 39.2%
    7. Twice's With You-th: 26.13%
    8. Lesserafim's Easy: 25.95‬%
    9. Ive's Ive Switch: 19.41%
    10. Nmixx's Fe3O4 Break: 18.12%

    You can check the spoiler part to see the full display of each drop calculation.



    So let's be clear, yes 100% there was a period of fraudulent sales on kpop, it was obvious before but is totally confirmed now. Yes some of these drops also have other factors influencing them, the most obvious one is itzy releasing an album with a member missing or some aespa fans pointing SM bad decisions like no distribution on the west for armageddon. I also think that still some of these sales are still inflated by some methods less fraudulently like cheap digipacks, lot of versions and photocards, but this is better than kpop companies and fandoms previous uncontrolled period of constant and absurd increase of sales.


    I don't know if kpop companies really thought they could keep this fraudulent scheme forever or they simply didn't thought enough about it and just went along since everybody was participating in the fraud, but I'm glad time gave me the reason as always and proved how fake those sales were.

  • So let's be clear, yes 100% there was a period of fraudulent sales on kpop

    I agree that there's been a noticeable reduction in physical sales, but I don't think we can attribute all of that decline to fraud or the lack thereof. In my "Peak Physical Sales" thread, I proposed a number of reasons for the decrease:

    • People having less disposable income due to inflation and cost of living increases.

    • With COVID-19 out of the picture, touring is back, and fans would rather spend their money on concerts.

    • General over-saturation of the K-pop market.

    • Decreased sales in China due to a stagnating Chinese economy.
    • Decreased sales in China due to C-bars boycotting or not being able to secure discounts.
    • Decreased sales in China due to the CCP clamping down on bulk-buying and K-pop overall.
    • Entertainment companies re-thinking their strategy of "over-shipping".

    The only reason I would consider related to "fraud" is the last one.

    Edited 2 times, last by wsoet ().

  • Ive is the most organic of the list. From rags to riches

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    narcissistic, my god i love it

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  • Posting this too cause it's lovely to see the slow but steady growth


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    narcissistic, my god i love it

    JCsIq3Q.gif

  • coincidentally, drama and armaggeddon are two albums that i have (not purposely) only one version for each album. i have multiple versions for each album before drama (savage album complete version, spicy 4+ versions, girls 4+ versions). i don't know what happened before drama album released (Kakao took over as their distributor), but now the pricing for aespa's latest albums is higher 30% to 60%.


    my theory based on what I see from aespa's album sale:

    it's harder for fans in other countries to buy kpop albums. there were so many changes that contribute to this, like import tax got changed by government (Indonesia did), kpop album sellers changed their policies, kpop album distribution policy got changed by government (probably China), company changed distributor, higher currency exchange rate, etc.

    groups who can survive sales drops are probably the ones who have strong sales in South Korea and not rely to much on other countries (e.g. China)

  • Pretty obvious who is using, fake it until you make it.

    The ones who dropped 40%-50% are the most obvious cases, for newjeans we even have evidence of bang si hyuk planning the fraudulent scheme. When itzy started selling just as much as twice is when everybody should have stopped and say "yeah those sales are fake, no way", but people rather laughed at twice and wack them for it.

    why you gotta do itzy like that

    itzy drop also have to do with lia hiatus, I'm sure they will improve next comeback.

    I agree that there's been a noticeable reduction in physical sales, but I don't think we can attribute all of that decline to fraud or the lack thereof. In my "Peak Physical Sales" thread, I proposed a number of reasons for the decrease:

    The only reason I would consider related to "fraud" is the last one.

    All the reasons you mention are logical and some have something to do with some drops, but there is no denying now that a big part of the inflation of sales was straight up fraud, we have hybe admitting it on 4k.

  • coincidentally, drama and armaggeddon are two albums that i have (not purposely) only one version for each album. i have multiple versions for each album before drama (savage album complete version, spicy 4+ versions, girls 4+ versions). i don't know what happened before drama album released (Kakao took over as their distributor), but now the pricing for aespa's latest albums is higher 30% to 60%.


    my theory based on what I see from aespa's album sale:

    it's harder for fans in other countries to buy kpop albums. there were so many changes that contribute to this, like import tax got changed by government (Indonesia did), kpop album sellers changed their policies, kpop album distribution policy got changed by government (probably China), company changed distributor, higher currency exchange rate, etc.

    groups who can survive sales drops are probably the ones who have strong sales in South Korea and not rely to much on other countries (e.g. China)

    The biggest reason for Aespa is the C-Bar boycotts. My World had about 700-800k albums bought from them. Take that off and Drama and Armageddon are in line with their usual numbers.

  • Ive is the most organic of the list. From rags to riches

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    I just heard some of their newest songs and I was blown away. (I am still doing catch-up with a lot of 4th gen groups music).

    Very good songs!

  • Why tf are the boycotting? Is it because of Karina dating?

    Nah it was before that. Something about not happy with photocards or something during Drama. At that point Karina bar boycotted, and said they would only support solo stuff.


    Not sure whether dating was an issue. Then recently they were going to have a concert in Japan on some date that was an issue for the Chinese due to what happened in WW2 between the countries. They did postpone the concert in the end, but people just jump on everything so quickly these days.

  • How is debuting with 56k sales and having 2 very famous ex-izone members "rags".

    If you bothered to take a look at the number other top ggs that debuted around the same time did initially compared to Ive you would know. Out of the top ggs they went from making the least impressive numbers to the biggest (certified by ifpi chart) in a steady growth. Also,if you want to insist on izone privilege as if that's the main reason ive are best sellers you do you. It's still a fact that said ex-izone members are much bigger and popular names after debuting in ive.

    narcissistic, my god i love it

    JCsIq3Q.gif

  • So u agree gidle is more organic than ive?

    I said that g idle selling 200 in its 1st day is a normal number for a gg from midsize company at the time they debuted. Out of the ggs who debuted at the same time as Ive even kep1er had 3x the of numbers Ive did.

    So no, I disagree. IVE numbers is from 2022 and G idle numbers are from 2017 so thats a fallacious comparison.


    G idle sold relatively well for that period, they sold 58k in the 1st month. Loona, who were the most hyped gg from midsize company at the time, sold 68k; fromis9 sold 21k. I*zone was an anomaly in sales 34k in the 1st day because they came from the most popular survival show at the time.

    I*zone's last release before disbandment sold 190k in its 1st day. As you can see that's almost 4x more than IVE sold in its first day.

    narcissistic, my god i love it

    JCsIq3Q.gif

  • I said that g idle selling 200 in its 1st day is a normal number for a gg from midsize company at the time they debuted. Out of the ggs who debuted at the same time as Ive even kep1er had 3x the of numbers Ive did.

    So no, I disagree. IVE numbers is from 2022 and G idle numbers are from 2017 so thats a fallacious comparison.


    G idle sold relatively well for that period, they sold 58k in the 1st month. Loona, who were the most hyped gg from midsize company at the time, sold 68k; fromis9 sold 21k. I*zone was an anomaly in sales 34k in the 1st day because they came from the most popular survival show at the time.

    I*zone's last release before disbandment sold 190k in its 1st day. As you can see that's almost 4x more than IVE sold in its first day.

    Saying ive's growth is more organic than gidle's is like saying earth is flat, a blatantly false statement.

  • coincidentally, drama and armaggeddon are two albums that i have (not purposely) only one version for each album.

    I have two of each but that is only because the price went up a lot compared to the past releases and these last two comebacks there are also waaaay too many versions to get in order to complete the set :aespa50::aespa44:

    Micah Forever

    Benny's Smoll Bean


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  • If you bothered to take a look at the number other top ggs that debuted around the same time did initially compared to Ive you would know. Out of the top ggs they went from making the least impressive numbers to the biggest (certified by ifpi chart) in a steady growth. Also,if you want to insist on izone privilege as if that's the main reason ive are best sellers you do you. It's still a fact that said ex-izone members are much bigger and popular names after debuting in ive.

    I never doubted that Ive are not bigger then they were in Izone days.


    I disputed the 'rags'. They started on a very, very significant leg up. Rags are stories like Mamamoo, (G)I-DLE, where they sell almost nothing the first album and grow from there to get to the top.


    Izone's debut first day sales are higher then some entire groups comeback sales (Purple Kiss, Lightsum). Those are rags.


    Trying to contoct some faux underground story just makes you seem desperate.

  • Idgaf if you think g idle and mmm are the true rags to riches story,even gfriend could be. i am comparing ive to the peers that debuted around the same time as them, and if you weren't obtuse you would notice that even kep1er and nmixx made much bigger initial sales.

    If IVE had Izone privilege, then most of it went to le sserafim who did double of Ive numbers in their 1st month debut sales.

    narcissistic, my god i love it

    JCsIq3Q.gif

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