SNSD Rewrites Girl Group History, Again

SNSD have once again re-written girl group history, this time breaking their own record and setting a new one by being the first girl group to exceed 200,000 in album sales.

On November 10, Gaon Chart, which is a certified music chart, announced that SNSD’s 3rd full album “The Boys” sold 227,994 albums in the month of October. What is even more surprising is the fact that because this album was released on October 19, it means that over 200,000 albums was sold within two weeks.

Gaon Chart explained, “The number of albums sold for SNSD’s recent album is the highest record yet for a girl group. If we look at the overall ranking in album sales throughout the year across all artists, SNSD comes in third place after Super Junior and DBSK.” They also mentioned, “SNSD’s past two album, 2nd full album “OH!” and 3rd mini-album “Hoot”, holds album sales records of 197,934 and 163,066 respectively.”

They also added, “Over the past year, with the increase of the K-Pop boom, the overall album sales of Korean idols have increased dramatically. Before the K-Pop boom struck, most albums were sold through fans living in Korea. But now international fans have started ordering albums through Korean record stores online.”

For the month of October, after SNSD on the album chart was Kim Hyun Joong in second place with his 2nd mini-album “Lucky”, selling 94,784 copies. In third place was international super stars JYJ, who have recently successfully finished their first solo concert in Spain and Germany, selling 81,867 copies of their album “In Heaven”. 

Gaon Chart’s album sales is calculated by subtracting the wholesale quantities (the number of albums sold) from the total amount in the corresponding warehouses of each record label, then the final value is calculated by aggregating the figures.

The top two artists with the highest records in album sales this year are: Super Junior, selling 329,035 albums with their 5th full album “Mr. Simple”, and DBSK selling 244,128 albums with “Why (Keep Your Head Down)”.