People are throwing around the word "international" and "global" a lot. Usually based on nothing.
So I wanted to check which boy groups actually are international/global. Especially I was interested in the geographical diversity of the fanbase. If a group is only popular in Asia, theyre not truly global. They would have to also have some presence on other continents.
I used Spotify charts data since 2017. Reasons: its relatively easy to access + it is less impacted by buying streams (ads), though playlisting still plays a role. But none of the Koran boy groups (except BTS) receives significant playlisting in big general playlists, only in the kpop or local ones.
In short, the answer is: only BTS. But we already knew that and only delusional people will argue. BTS has charted in every single one of the 68 countries/territories for which Spotify has charts (they havent charted in Cyprus, but despite Cyprus existing in the dropdown menu for charts, there has never been an actual chart published for it).
So, in further analysis BTS has been excluded, since they are an outlier and everyone agrees that they are in another galaxy.
Moving on to other boy groups.
I looked at how many different countries each group has charted in. At most it was 23 countries for TXT. Since a lot of these groups only chart in SEA and East Asian countries, theres a separate view for how many non-SEA/East Asian countries their have charted in:
This shows the diversity of their listeners. Even if they have charted only for a day or few, its still means there is at least senough people who have given them a chance to get them on the chart.
Looking at which countries these groups have charted in, we see that theres some quite clearly seprated clusters of countries and groups:
- TXT, Stray Kids, Enhypen - groups who charts outside of traditional kpop markets and outside of Latin America (most "international" groups)
- Monsta X, Super Junior - groups who chart in Latin America
- Ateez to SJ D&E - groups who chart in few countries
- EXO to NCT U - groups who chart well in SEA/East Asia
Countries have pretty clear clustering:
- the group of SEA countries
- the group of Korea/Philippines/Japan/SA, which is also more similar to SEA
- Latin America
- European/North American countries which are not traditional kpop markets, which are dominated by 4th gen. UAE and Turkey also fall into this cluster. Russia has the biggest impact on total streams for most groups in this cluster, they're the only big market where 4th gen bgs are charting well and it looks like a growing trend.
Next I checked all boy group songs which have charted on Global 200 and where the streams are coming from. TXT has highest rank so far (#125 with CROWN) and SuperM highest streams (823k), followed by CROWN (815k):pasted-from-clipboard.png
And by shares:
Enhypen and Stray Kids are the only groups with significant share of streams from Europe (this is mostly Russia), while TXT is the only one with streams from North America (theyre to only group who has charted in US and Canada). Enhypen and Stray Kids have lowest share of SEA streams, while NCT dream has highest.
In conclusion:
- No group consistently charts in big markets globally
- Majority/a lot of boy groups chart relatively well in traditional kpop markets (SEA, Korea, Japan) + Saudi Arabia
- 4th gen boy groups are the ones who do chart outside of traditional markets, specifically Stray Kids, Enhypen and TXT. A lot of this charting is probbaly driven by crossover from army. This is expected, since kpop had no relevance in these markets pre-BTS, so other 3rd gen boy groups did not have any fanbase built here and SM/YG dominance that exists in traditional markets is missing. Thats why SM/YG boy groups are mostly limited to Asia.
- Only TXT has charted in North America and noone has charted in bigger European markets (except Russia). However, charting in smaller European countries indicates 4th gen groups are probably closer to charting in bigger markets there (theres no reason to assume differences in which groups are preferred).
- Super Junior and Monsta X chart in Latin America with songs directed at these markets (only 1 or few days at low positions, but still). Super Junior is the most international SM group.
- Russia has really taken off as a big market for 4th gen boy groups outside of traditional markets
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) charts everywhere, there are some countries that have Spotify, but dont have charts, so these streams are only included in global numbers.
