Hello, we all know what the subject of the week is and today I will show you some interesting numbers
1. How is Stray Kids popular in the US?
Well, right? these things happen, according to data reported in June 2021, Stray Kids was the 5th most consumed K-pop group in the United States (source). Considering that at the time of data analysis, Stray Kids' last comeback had been in September 2020, with Back Door, the group accumulated:
- 47,699 physical sales
- 1,558 digital sales album
- 17,512 digital sales track
- 129,192,473 streams (97,866,932 paid streams / 31,325,541 video streams)
(source)
With this data alone, Stray Kids was the 4th most streamed K-pop group in the United States only in the middle of 2021, without a comeback.
2. Okay, I get it, but how come they didn't make the Billboard charts with NOEASY or Thunderous?
Simple, distribution and bad timing. Before ODDINARY, all Stray Kids releases were made on Mondays. Billboard and all worldwide music charts count data as of Friday. That way, Stray Kids would have less than 4 days of sales counting to appear on the music charts since they released their work at 6PM KST.
3. But K-pop artists managed to chart at the bottom of the Billboard 200 on digital alone, why can't Stray Kids?
First off, all these artists achieved this at the height of digital and iTunes sales. A K-pop artist in 2014 through 2016 sold far more with a peak in the top 30 on iTunes US than the #1 on iTunes sells today. Stray Kids began to be successful in the international market at a time when most people no longer consume digital or iTunes. According to the 2020 IFPI report, digital consumption in that year corresponded to 5.8% of the market, in 2016 digital had more than 10% of the market, in 2014 it was shared 67% of the market (2020 souce, 2016 source, 2014 source). The fact is that the audience that started following Stray Kids in 2020 does not consume digital.
4. But is Stray Kids consumed in any way in the United States?
Yes and consumed more than 90% of K-pop artists with the exception of BTS, BLACKPINK and TWICE. The numbers above already showed that Stray Kids without a comeback were the 4th most played artist in the first half of 2021. With the end of the year 2021, Stray Kids remained in the position.
Need data? NOEASY was more streamed and digitally consumed than some K-pop album in the past year:
Stray Kids has grown organically and their #1 future is a consequence of the good number of streams they've already had in the US. Furthermore, Stray Kids is the only K-pop group that has a song charting for more than 1 day in Spotify USA's top 200 besides BTS and BLACKPINK. And no, it makes no sense to compare BLACKPINK numbers in 2020 with Stray Kids numbers in 2022.
Maniac on Spotify Daily Top Songs USA
Day 1: #106 — 295,143
Day 2: #147 (-41) — 241,174
Day 3: #182 (-35) — 211,653
Day 4: #161 (+21) — 238,697
Day 5: #193 (-32) — 221,066
Anyway, I just want to point out that why a K-pop artist who is still trending on YouTube Music US and charting on Spotify USA has his numbers accused of fraud, while K-pop artists sell 40k, 50k or 60k in the US without even getting in on a streaming chart? 
