Nowadays, BTS's popularity has significantly expanded outside of South Korea, particularly in its neighboring countries including Japan which has the second-largest market in the world. The Big Hit boy group consistently enters the domestic charts release after release, and recently the band is revealed to have the second most sales in the country last year.
BTS Ranks Second with Most Sales in Japan in 2020
On Feb. 8, Billboard Japan released its "2020 annual sales trends" based on the data collected by SoundScan Japan, a popular record sales data provider, from Dec. 3, 2019 to Jan. 3, 2021. The data includes sales from CD and video software companies as well as from chain stores, bookstores, consumer electronic stores, and convenience stores.
According to the music video sales (DVD/Blu-ray, etc.) by artists, BTS ranked second with the highest sales earning a total of 4.17 billion yen (approximately 50 billion KRW). The septet was bested by Nogizaka46, a Japanese female idol group, which earned 5.76 billion yen.
Sitting in third place is the five-piece boy band Arashi with 3.5 billion yen. When it comes to the total sales of music software, including the music video sales, Big Hit Entertainment's boy group once again claimed the No. 2 position, having earned 77.9 billion yen. Coming in at first place is Arashi with 79.2 billion yen and at No. 3 is Nogizaka46 with 75.1 billion yen.
With BTS competing against well-known Japanese idol groups in the country, this only proves the huge fan base the Korean act has established in Japan.
In the total sales of individual works, BTS ranked 10th with "BTS World Tour 'Love Yourself: Speak Yourself' - Japan Edition." The group managed to sell 127,000 DVD/Blu-ray copies of their world tour.
In first place is the movie "Frozen 2," which sold 499,000 copies. Based on the "2020 annual sales trends," the total sales of music video DVD/Blu-rays amounted to 69.1 billion yen (approximately 734.59 billion KRW), which decreased by 91.2% from the previous year.
BTS's 2020 Achievements in the Japanese Music Market
This impressive 2020 sales of BTS may have stemmed from the success of the group's two albums last year. On Feb. 21, the septet released their fourth full-length album titled "Map of the Soul: 7," which claimed the No. 1 spot on the Feb. 24 chart for Oricon after selling 227,204 in estimated sales.
But that's not all - the album also topped Oricon's weekly and monthly albums chart after its release. And on June 19, the Japanese music chart revealed that BTS had ranked in first place in its album sales rankings for the first half of 2020. "Map of the Soul: 7" sold 429,000 copies in Japan, according to Oricon.
Considering this, BTS has become the first foreign act in 36 years to be No. 1 on Oricon's albums chart for the first half of the year. The last artist to attain this feat was Michael Jackson with "Thriller."
The Big Hit boy group launched another full-length album last year, titled "BE," which came out on Nov. 20. In the week ending on Nov. 29, the work rose to No. 1 on the weekly Oricon Chart with 207,216 points (based on streams, digital downloads, and physical album sales).
Congratulations to BTS!
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Written by Mhaliya Scott
