How global is
K-pop right now?
BTS recently made history for taking over not 1, but all the top music markets in the world.
Map of the Soul: 7, BTS' latest studio album has now risen to No. 1 on the albums charts in all of the top five music markets in the world. This marks the first time an Asian group has done so, and it remains a rare sight, even when the biggest names in the world are competing for the top spot.
K-pop acts that made it
to the Billboard Hot 100
Wonder Girls
PSY
BTS
Blackpink
J-Hope
IFPI Global Music Report 2019
BTS was able to make a mark in 2018 for being #2 in the Top 10 Global Recording Artists and Global Top 10 Albums of 2018.
In 2018, the South Korean music market experienced a 17.9% increase in revenue growth, and it was described as “shifting from ‘potential’ to ‘power player.’” The country also ranked at No. 6 among the top 10 music markets worldwide.
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Over on IFPI’s charts, BTS had the Nos. 2 (Love Yourself: Answer) and 3 (Love Yourself: Tear) top global albums last year with 2.7 million and 2.3 million album units, respectively. They also hit No. 2 on the top 10 global recording artists chart.
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“From day one, K-pop has been one of the key focus genres for our editors in Singapore,” David Erlandsson, Spotify’s data scientist, told IFPI. “These playlists were originally created for the South East Asian markets, but, as playlists have no borders, their popularity has since travelled around the world and there is now a more global focus on the genre.”
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He also said that K-pop artists got over 100 million streams from listeners in Peru, Canada and France last year.
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It’s clear that K-pop is making strides in a global market that is more internationally connected than ever before.
Statistics below shows the breakdown of how popular K-pop is today, compared to other music genres.
Popularity of K-Pop around the world
This line graph above shows you the rapid rise of K-pop music from South Korea compared to other popular music genres. If you're into the stock market, K-pop and South Korean culture is a good bet as it's a very hot commodity around the world that everyone wants to have. K-pop continues to dominate the world with it's meteoric rise and all trends points that it will further open the gap between other music genres.