On July 7, Circle Chart (formerly called Gaon Chart) revealed the K-pop albums that sold the most in the first half of 2022 (January to June). Several of those albums were released by certain agencies, such as SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment HYBE, YG Entertainment, and Starship Entertainment. Keep reading to find out which is the No. 1 best-selling K-pop company.
Best-Selling K-pop Companies on Circle Chart (First Half of 2022): HYBE vs SM Entertainment- Who Is #1?
Among the five K-pop agencies mentioned above, HYBE is the one with the highest album sales on the Circle Chart in the first half of 2022. Coming in second place is SM Entertainment.
HYBE took the lead with a whopping total of 11,093,641 copies sold, thanks to its solid artist lineup consisting of BTS, TXT, SEVENTEEN, who were the main contributors to the label. Its two girl groups LE SSERAFIM and fromis_9 also showed good results.
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According to the Circle First-Half Album Chart, BTS' "Proof" sold 2,957,410 copies, SEVENTEEN's "Face the Sun" sold 2,523,606 copies, TXT's "minisode 2: Thursday's Child" sold 1,650,263 copies, and ENHYPEN's "DIMENSION: ANSWER" sold 756,892 copies.
While LE SSERAFIM's "FEARLESS" sold 412,696 copies, fromis_9's "Midnight Guest" and "from our Memento Box" sold 313,191 copies overall. Finally, NU'EST's "Needle & Bubble" sold 80,308 copies.
SM Entertainment took the second spot with 7,101,835 total copies sold. In the first half of this year, NCT Dream and Red Velvet had the most contributions among SM artists. NCT Dream's "Glitch Mode" and "Beatbox" impressively sold 3,167,050 copies in total, while Red Velvet's "The ReVe Festival 2022" sold 680,601 copies.
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SM's total album sales also include 280,669 copies of Super Junior albums, such as "The Road: Winter for Spring," "Love Story" (Kyuhyun), and "A Wild Rose" (Ryeowook), and 256,144 copies of Girls' Generation albums, including Taeyeon's "INVU" and HYO's "DEEP."
Other contributors are EXO Suho with "Grey Suit" (211,487 copies), SHINee Onew with "DICE" (139,685 copies), and TVXQ Changmin with "Devil" (34,190 copies).
Best-Selling K-pop Companies on Circle Chart in First Half of 2022: Here's the Top 3 to 5
JYP Entertainment takes the third spot in the top 5 best-selling K-pop companies in the first half of 2022, with a total of 3,734,859 copies. Stray Kids, who became the first million-seller under the label, make up 62% of JYP's overall album sales in the past six months. The boy group sold 1,676,172 copies of their mini-album "ODDINARY."
NMIXX's "AD MARE" sold 476,772 copies, while TWICE Nayeon's "IM NAYEON" sold 473,255 copies and DAY6 Wonpil's "Pilmography" sold 47,045 copies.
Coming in fourth place is Starship Entertainment with a total of 1,687,817 copies. This K-pop agency is showing surprise sales after debuting its new girl group, IVE. This rookie group sold 668,291 copies of their second single album "LOVE DIVE."
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MONSTA X recorded the second-biggest album sales among Starship artists thanks to their group release "SHAPE of LOVE" and Kihyun's solo work "VOYAGER,"- which sold 660,621 copies overall.
Meanwhile, CRAVITY's "LIBERTY: IN OUR COSMOS" sold 152,515 copies and WJSN CHOCOME's "Super Yuppers!" sold 29,598 copies.
Finally, YG Entertainment is the fifth best-selling K-pop company with a total of 1,114,492 copies. TREASURE is the label's main contributing artist for the first half of 2022. The boy group's physical album sales reached 807,8129 copies with their first mini-album "THE SECOND STEP: CHAPTER ONE."
The only other contributor is iKON, whose fourth mini-album "FLASHBACK" sold 96,250 copies.
Congratulations to each K-pop company on their impressive total album sales!
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Written by Maria Scott
