Maybe? Great streamers though
I mean they’re the best in streams
Yep exactly and k-pop albums are really expensive here in my country
Niceeee. It seems like sea asians are not too stupid to expend must of their money buying dozens of albums that look the same.
For sure, they also make it up with streams to support their faves.
I'm in the US. I shipped an album from Korea and it cost me like $20 for everything, I had to wait for a month but it was worth it because faster shipping options are ridiculous.
Album sales are not only source of income. Concerts in SEA countries are expensive and yt views bring a lot of income, social media presence too.
Depends on the group and the country, SEA are sometimes good album buyers too, I mean, some of those countries have a crazy amount of population and buying albums there is definitely a bigger thing nowadays than before. I remember seeing how most of the top buyers for NCT albums on ktown4u were often from Thailand, Singapur...
i think u over-generalised.
Secret Number is popular only in Indonesia because one of their member Dita is Indonesian
Indonesia =/= SEA
There are many other SEA countries which are more invested in albums e.g. Singapore, Thailand, Philippines and Malaysia.
Edit: I live in Malaysia and I can tell you that Malaysian are crazy with certain kpop groups like Blackpink and BTS. I heard Singapore is same too. So maybe the effect is not seen with all groups but most of the famous groups
I live in one (Malaysia) and yes it's kinda expensive to buy Kpop album here. I forked out around 500+ of my country currency just to buy several version of BP album last year.
One typical kpop album is usually less than RM100 (USD20++). Where do u buy them?
Blackpink The Album is also less than RM100 on Shopee (after discount/cashback)
Between putting food on the table vs plastic.
I’d choose the food
it's good they can support their favs in other ways other than album buying...
But sea has singapore which is one of the richest country in the world and both Thailand and Malaysia are middle income countries and vietnam and philipeness are developing countries and indonesia has highest GDP among SEA but its population is huge may be that differs the situtation anyway kpop is huge in all these countries so there defintely scope to buy albums so its not empty market someone as say
exactly my thoughts, plus kpop albums are not cheap
Display Morei think u over-generalised.
Secret Number is popular only in Indonesia because one of their member Dita is Indonesian
Indonesia =/= SEA
There are many other SEA countries which are more invested in albums e.g. Singapore, Thailand, Philippines and Malaysia.
Edit: I live in Malaysia and I can tell you that Malaysian are crazy with certain kpop groups like Blackpink and BTS. I heard Singapore is same too. So maybe the effect is not seen with all groups but most of the famous groups
thank you for not painting SEA with a broad brush. everytime international fans want to slander them, they group the entire region together when every country is completely different. They never do this with East Asian countries.
Also some of the countries aren't even into kpop as much and have other things to spend money on. I've known many who prefer to listen to their own traditional music.
i can only speak of Indonesia but album is really expensive. I come from mid-income family and i still consider album to be very expensive. My friends, who are also kpop stans, are hesitant to buy because they still depend on their parents' money and often times their parents wouldn't allow them to buy albums.
thank you for not painting SEA with a broad brush. everytime international fans want to slander them, they group the entire region together when every country is completely different. They never do this with East Asian countries.
Also some of the countries aren't even into kpop as much and have other things to spend money on. I've known many who prefer to listen to their own traditional music.
Well I come from SEA too, so I know the situation here. There are certain countries that are more into kpop such as Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia .. these countries have a rather big demographic which can afford Kpop albums
Sales data from secret number pretty much useless to measure SEA fans buying power...
It would be interesting if there is data from big3/hybe group.
88% of SEA Kpop fans are not Secret Number fan, let's start with that
Also, one major thing that people tend to overlooked is that SEA Kpop fans ALWAYS join group orders from China or whatever group orders there is, it is really abnormal for a country fanbase to buy one if I recall correctly
So yeah , they do buy but their purchase goes under the GO's origin country
Anyhow, I'm from Malaysia and I will directly buy albums from my friends in Korea, much cheaper than all these websites
hmmm... hard to tell. For some countries albums are very expensive so I understand when they say they choose other ways to support their faves. 
Sales data from secret number pretty much useless to measure SEA fans buying power...
It would be interesting if there is data from big3/hybe group.
the best group to look at are well probably BTS and BP since they have the two biggest presences in SEA (looking at their views). The problem is we don't know just how many sales are from SEA. It would be hard but given both groups likely have some figures of non - SEA sales from countries in Europe and US and so on, it could be possible to weed out an estimate but still wouldn't be accurate, since we really don't know the korea-only number and both groups are also big in korea
Indeed, album sale does not generate much profit to the group unless it's very big like 100k+ copies. The album sale is loved more because it suggests the capability to hold concert than the value of the sale itself.
Not big of a album buyer still, K-pop can make good chunk of money from SEA via fanmeet/concert, endorsement, performance gigs etc. Tokopedia, Shopee and Lazada have hired various K-pop groups.
thank you for not painting SEA with a broad brush. everytime international fans want to slander them, they group the entire region together when every country is completely different. They never do this with East Asian countries.
But it's ok for you to lump an entire nation together?
the best group to look at are well probably BTS and BP since they have the two biggest presences in SEA (looking at their views). The problem is we don't know just how many sales are from SEA. It would be hard but given both groups likely have some figures of non - SEA sales from countries in Europe and US and so on, it could be possible to weed out an estimate but still wouldn't be accurate, since we really don't know the korea-only number and both groups are also big in korea
I try to give some estimate.
In my country Malaysia, there is portion of Blinks buying from certain stores on Shopee. Taking the two most popular stores - KPOPMERCH and Fatirkshop (only YG select and normal versions). The sales of Blackpink's The Album is 1.6k and 2.9k respectively. This is excluding Group Order directly from Ktown4u / China C-bars.
I think the sales is quite impressive given that Malaysia is such a small country in SEA. In comparison, Butter sold 2.5k combined.
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