K-Pop Trends Today: BTS and EXO Dominate Album Sales While IU Is the Most Streamed Artist

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There is a reason why BTS and IU were the Grand Prize winners at The Golden Disc 2018.

BTS and EXO's rivalry continues.

According to the Gaon Music Chart published on January 12, there exists an overarching tendency for female artists to excel in digital streaming while male artists dominate the album sales market.

IU is the artist with the most number of singles charting in the Digital Singles Top 100, followed by TWICE.

In album sales, both BTS and EXO sold 2,000,000 more copies in 2017 than they did in the previous year.

BTS' "LOVE YOURSELF: Her" topped the album sales chart, selling 1,493,443 copies in total, which makes it the most sold album since g.o.d's 4th album in 2011.

EXO's "The War" came in second, with the total sales of 949,827 copies, and BTS' "You Never Walk Alone" was 2017's third most sold album, selling 768,402 copies in total. Wanna One's "1x1=1 (TO BE ONE)" and "1-1=0 (NOTHING WITHOUT YOU)" were fourth and fifth most sold albums respectively.

"The exponential increase in album sales can be explained by the consumers' tendency to view albums as a commercial merchandise rather than as a product for listening to music," explained Choi Kwang-ho, the executive secretary of Korea Music Content Association (KMCA).

By Grace and Arin Kim voomvoomk@gmail.com