2023 can be considered a great year for the Korean popular music (K-Pop) industry, with one of the milestones being the sales of regular albums (not digital albums released online). Annual sales exceeded 100 million copies for the first time.

On December 19, Circle Chart, a leading tool specializing in tracking K-pop album sales, said that from the beginning of the year to the end of November 2023, the total sales of the 400 most popular K-pop albums have reached 116 million copies.

This number increased by 144% compared to 80 million copies in the same period last year, setting a record for annual album sales without taking into account December figures. November alone recorded 15.16 million copies. copies sold, up 217.2% over the same period last year and breaking the monthly record set in October 2023.

Fans line up to buy stamps to commemorate the “BTS 10th Anniversary Festa” event at the post office in Seoul, June 13, 2023. Photo: YONHAP/TTXVN

In contrast to the usual surge in album sales, the number of downloads of the top 400 songs on music platform Melon and four other major platforms in Korea has been gradually decreasing since May this year. In November, the number of downloads decreased by 20.1% over the same period last year, even down by 44.9% compared to November 2019, the time before the COVID-19 outbreak.

Circle Chart’s leading research expert Kim Jin-woo said that the cause of the above decline could be due to a number of factors, such as fewer working days in November than other months and people’s tendency to switch to foreign music platforms such as YouTube Music.