NEW YORK, NEW YORK – FEBRUARY 21: K-pop boy band BTS visit the SiriusXM Studios on February 21, 2020 … [+] in New York City. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
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BTS’s new album Map of the Soul: 7 hasn’t even been out for a full month, but already it has established itself as not just a blockbuster release, but the most successful title in South Korean history.
Looking at data shared publicly by Gaon, an organization backed by the Korea Music Content Association which looks specifically at shipments in South Korea alone, BTS’s latest has now blown past what stood as the bestselling album in the country’s history by a fairly healthy sum, and at this point there is no looking back.
Map of the Soul: 7 has now moved just under 4.115 million copies in South Korea alone, according to the latest Gaon Albums chart. That sum is enough to keep it in first place on the country’s albums ranking, and it is far ahead of the previous record-holder.
Up until just recently, another BTS album held the title of the bestselling release in South Korean history. Their 2019 global smash Map of the Soul: Persona owned that spot in the chart annals for less than a year, as it hasn’t even celebrated its first birthday yet.
Last year, Map of the Soul: Persona shifted 3.718 million copies in South Korea, which was enough to make it the bestselling item of the year (the second-bestselling, Seventeen’s An Ode, failed to reach 900,000 sales), as well as the biggest release in the country’s history. In 2020, the same title has now moved another 40,000 copies, moving its total shipments to almost 3.76 million.
With another 40,000 units moved in 2020, Map of the Soul: Persona stands as one of the most successful albums of the year in South Korea, but it has still been beaten by the band’s newer release.
At this point, fans of BTS will surely continue to buy copies of Map of the Soul: 7, and according to Hanteo, a different organization which provides real-time data regarding music sales in South Korea (Hanteo and Gaon look at different information, but at this point, there’s no arguing with Map of the Soul: 7’s dominance, whichever data set is used), the title continues to move at least 1,000 copies per day, so that sum is sure to rise, though perhaps not considerably.
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