If album sales determine a groups popularity...

Drew, you started trolling your favs?

Nobody ever said this so case closed kkkkk

Bigbang dominated digital sales heavily and their touring numbers were amazing too so their not so amazing physical sales get covered bcoz of it.

Also I don't get your SVT-EXO-BTS part so I won't bother answering that.

this is a good question. there's various factors and although Bigbang doesn't check off album sales, they have a different kind of popularity koreans love. In 2016, netizens said H.O.T, G.O.D, and BIGBANG are top 3 boy groups ever in Korea and for different reasons.

http://kpopkfans.blogspot.com/…g-as-top3-boy-groups.html

Good question, and you have good answers

1. Bigbang have really amazing digital. Their songs (almost) always get first rank in k chart

2. They had great touring numbers

3. Every members pretty much popular/ well known by korean gp

Big bang not only were really strong digitally but their music was liked by the general bc they weren't seen as a typical " manufactured boy group" since GD was pretty much involved in Big Bang's music. In addition to that all members were known, which is something that didn't happen with most boy groups back then or even until now. They were #1 boy group for a reason.

most of their income came from touring anyway album sales don't give that much profit as people think.

Quote from Drew_B

Fandom >>> general public.

General public wont buy anything of yours except maybe the one song they like. They will just listen to you on YouTube or the radio.

Fandom buys albums and goes to concerts.

but they had a big fandom (not huge but still big) the difference is that they also had way more casual fans than most boy groups ever had.