While many hit K-pop songs such as girl group aespa’s “Supernova” exploded and Rosé's “APT.” blew the doors off of 2024, physical album sales this year took a hit for the first time in nine years.

Physical album sales in the January-November period this year were recorded at 93.14 million copies, according to data from the Korea Music Content Association’s (KMCA) Circle Chart, a 19 percent decrease compared to the 116 million copies recorded in the previous year.


The total this year is also not expected to reach the 100 million-unit milestone achieved in 2023, even with sales in December.

There were also only 20 albums that reached the million-sales status, 13 lower than the previous year. Album sales for boy bands Seventeen and Stray Kids, which both had albums that sold 5 million copies each in 2023, peaked this year at 3 million and 2 million copies, respectively.

“We were expecting some sales number changes this year as the album industry last year was overheated,” KMCA Secretary General Choi Kwang-ho told the JoongAng Ilbo, an affiliate of the Korea JoongAng Daily.

“But we didn’t expect to drop by this much. A 20 percent decrease on year is considered a great crisis for the industry.”

It’s not just new album sales that have decreased; the sales of old albums — referring to albums that were released more than six months ago — declined by 41.7 percent in the first half of 2024 on year, recording just 3.3 million copies sold in the first half of 2024. The sales of old albums are often used as an indicator that shows the number of new fans in the industry.

The overall decrease in K-pop album sales may be attributed to the recent negative news in the industry, namely the dispute between artists and the agency.

“The dispute between HYBE and ADOR as well as K-pop idols causing issues brought a feeling of fatigue to the public,” a report from the Korea Creative Content Agency, released on Dec. 18, said.

While music critic Kim Yoon-ha was skeptical of a direct correlation between the recent conflicts in the industry and the album sales slide, she had said that negative publicity is a “definite downside for the industry.”

“It can be a decisively negative factor that can affect K-pop demand in the long run,” Kim said.

The K-pop industry, however, is still expected to rebound next year: BTS's Suga, RM, Jimin, V and Jungkook are all set to complete their mandatory service in June, with expectations that the band will release music in the second half of 2025, while Blackpink and G-Dragon will also be releasing new music next year.

Fourth-generation K-pop groups, commonly referring to acts that debuted in 2020 or later, such as aespa, ILLIT, IVE, Riize and ZeroBaseOne, are also expected to return with new music in 2025.

BY HWANG JEE-YOUNG [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]