What happened to 2nd gen album sales?

This is where EXO comes in.

A lot of people like to discredit them but it's truth that they ushered in a new era of physical sales in the Kpop market and thus why they are considered the start of the third generation.

1st gen Kpop groups existed during a time where physical album sales were the norm so selling a Million albums was very much achievable domestically.

During second 2nd gen, physical album sales were on a huge decline as digital downloads and streaming was becoming the norm. It was during this Era that YG Entertainment and their idols like Big Bang and 2NE1 were able to claim titles such as Kings and Queens of Kpop because they dominated the digital market and digitals were now considered the measurement of success. At this point physicals were more or less irrelevant and no one really paid much attention to it because no one was expected to sell more than like 50-100k.

Then came along EXO, shocking everyone when they started making waves in physical album sales. I remember back then there were lots of disagreements about who was most successful between V.I.Ps and EXOLs (when EXO was unmatched and at the peak of their careers). They helped paved a path internationally especially in China when it came to album sales. People began to care about selling lots of albums in order for their faves to be the best and the competition generated a huge rise in physical sales.

Then of course, later came along BTS that went even further by opening up the Western Market and having even greater albums sales that have yet to be matched. Now with social media and fans constantly competing to one-up each other, it's no surprise that 3rd gen has such high album sales when they are all now competing on a global scale.

Now you have 100x faster internet than before. Before it was more common you download everything, because youtube could not show you better than 480p videos without buffering. Now you can run 4k videos on youtube without problem and streaming services are more common + these services constantly recommend you new music and bring you new fans.

Quote from LovenRose

Yes China is a big part of the sales. But not sure I would label the behaviour “motherly”...

That's my theory. Why would young girls buy excess amounts of albums even when they aren't needed to win shows or do fanmeets. Just to brag?

Quote from icyruios

• 4th Gen: People basically just bulk buy albums not for the actual albums but for the loots in the albums. I don't even see it as album sales we should call it photocard sales I bet none of y'all even fking own a CD player to play the CD and no having a player in the car doesn't count

Vinyl editions when? Vinyls are the real refuge of physical album collectors!

Others already answered you but I also remember even I was so into Kpop back then (more than I do now) and I used to get my friends and classmates into kpop. But I didn’t even buy albums of my favs because the thought was near impossible. To get a kpop album in my country was so hard even delivery sites like Amazon weren’t a thing for normal people in my country (only those who use it for business and have all the documents needed for it….etc).

Kpop albums in 3rd gen are so easy to get. I sometimes buy albums of groups I don’t stan just because the aesthetics. People are kidding themselves if they think the expand worldwide in technology and trade is not a factor in making this huge difference.

Quote from icyruios

If we are talking in general

• 1st Gen: People buy albums because they actually listen to the CDs with their music players
• 2nd Gen: Less people buy albums because it's the start of social media and tech advancement making music much easier to consume. Kinda also why digitals were so huge in the millions back then
• 3rd Gen: Late 2nd Gen kinda started this with the photocards and extra bonuses you get from albums, and 3rd Gen started to make these "collectables" a thing, and physical albums see a rise again
• 4th Gen: People basically just bulk buy albums not for the actual albums but for the loots in the albums. I don't even see it as album sales we should call it photocard sales I bet none of y'all even fking own a CD player to play the CD and no having a player in the car doesn't count

It was kind of you to make the bulk buying for the loots a 4th gen thing only.

Quote from godkingteshub

But according to this theory physical sales should even even lower than 2nd gen because nobody even has CD players anymore and everything is digital

3rd gen probably sells digital albums counted as physicals

Everyone’s already said what I was thinking. Albums were in a weird spot for them.

1St gen : basically the only medium u can buy the music is phsycal

2nd gen : is at a time where social media are exploding like Facebook,cyworld.and U can do buy digital music on the phone .

And phone that era can only do text,call,2g internet & music .

So the market kinda shift .

but this era is still good with the gp coz even non KPop fans Will still known the song/the group .

Coz in cyworld u can put music on your profile page.

But they still not utulize the social media to the global yet .& twitter are smaller than it is now(i make my Twitter around 2011 but only few of my friends used it, while majority still use Facebook)

Facebook and cyworld are more based on comunicating with u'r friends while Twitter is about what u'r interested in.

3rd gen : is when the fandom Going up but the go kinda Going down. coz of social media like Twitter are more accessable .

and at the middle of 3rd gen around 2015, i feel this around bigbang lower came out and have 4.5 million views in a day(it was bonkers at the time) thats when we starting to take note about records and etc (people take notes about it before but for different reason)

And bts blew up around 2015/2016 on social media(Twitter,YouTube).

For 4th gen : is more focused on fandom but losing alot of general public recognition on korea.

Thats why now some groups have insane sales,views,trends on Twitter but the gp on korea won't know them unless u're a KPop fans.