Ok-pop album gross sales stagnate in 2024 as streaming grows
Korea Customs Service have launched statistics indicating a stagnation in Ok-pop bodily album gross sales, whereas streaming numbers proceed to develop.
- READ MORE: GFRIEND remind us of their distinctive magic on ‘Season of Recollections’
On January 19, the Korea Customs Service revealed new commerce statistics through The Chosun reporting KRW423.8billion in earnings from bodily album exports in 2024, a 0.55 per cent enhance from 2023’s KRW421.5billion. The outlet famous that the modest enhance in gross sales indicators a gradual downtrend in bodily album gross sales for the primary time because the business’s constant progress since 2015.
Notably, Ok-pop exports to Japan – the business’s largest market – fell by 24.7 per cent in 2024 with KRW130.3billion in gross sales. In the meantime, gross sales to the US and China made up 72.8 per cent in exports in complete final yr, marking important rebounds after Korean content material restrictions had been enacted in China in 2023. The outlet additionally famous that regardless of the achievement of a record-breaking 100million album gross sales in 2023, the business was unable to hit the identical numbers in 2024.
The Chosun cites business insiders in attributing 2024’s gross sales decline to the “absence and underperformance” of main teams akin to BTS and BLACKPINK, each of that are at the moment beneath hiatus. The dearth of “new international mega-hits” in 2024 had been additionally cited as a contributing issue to Ok-pop’s stagnating gross sales.
Moreover, the longstanding public feud between former ADOR CEO Min Hee-jin, HYBE executives and NewJeans occurring since April 2024 was additionally reported to be an extra issue to the album sale hunch in 2024, per The Chosun’s sources.
The 4 largest music labels within the Ok-pop house – HYBE, JYP Leisure, YG Leisure and SM Leisure – reported declines in working revenue numbers because of album sale declines.
Regardless of this, streaming numbers for the Ok-pop business proceed to develop, though streaming has been identified to yield solely half of the income bodily items. usually do. In accordance with The Chosun, HYBE reported a ten.5 per cent year-by-year enhance in every day streams final yr, totalling to 12.6billion streams by the tip of 2024.