Although in 2021, the Kpop entertainment industry is heavily influenced by the COVID-19 epidemic, however, many artists still achieve great achievements when selling their albums. Among them, hot names must be mentioned BTS, Lisa- Blackpink.
Korean media announced the chart of artists selling albums in 2021. Accordingly, this achievement is counted from 500,000 copies or more.
In particular, the chart has 12 K-pop artists surpassing half a million copies within the first week of opening for sale. Specifically, sales are calculated from Hanteo - that is, actual sales figures have been calculated. This chart includes both solo artists and groups, and only counts those who hit half a million copies or more in the first week of release.
The top 12 Kpop artists who sold more than half a million albums in the first week of 2021 include:
BTS - Butter (1.97 million copies in the first week of release).
SEVENTEEN - Your Choice (1.36 million copies in first week of release).
NCT DREAM - Hot Sauce (1.01 million copies in the first week of release).
NCT 127- Sticker (929,500 copies in the first week of release).
EXO - Don't Fight The Feeling (902,000 copies in the first week of release).
Baekhyun - Bambi (868,800 copies in the first week of release).
ENHYPEN - DIMENSION: DILEMMA (818,700 copies in the first week of release).
Lisa - LALISA (736,200 copies in the first week of release).
ATEEZ - ZERO: FEVER Part 3 (665,300 copies in the first week of release).
Stray Kids - No Easy (641,500 copies in the first week of release).
TXT - The Chaos Chapter: Freeze (630,500 copies in the first week of release).
The Boyz - THRILL RIDE (523,600 copies in first week of release).
Based on the chart above, it is easy to see that there are familiar names like BTS, EXO or Blackpink. However, the group that surprised the most was ENHYPEN. They only debuted in November 2020 (ie less than a year) but with the first full album in their career, Dimension: Dilemma, the group sold 818,700 copies in just 1 week.