SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – JANUARY 23: South Korean boy band SEVENTEEN attends the 8th Gaon Chart K-Pop … [+]
Seventeen has been a major player in the global music industry for several years now, but their influence and impact is felt most strongly in their home country of South Korea. With their latest EP FML, the band has reached an unprecedented level of sales success—the kind that perhaps only they can manage these days.
According to Hanteo, one of the two major music charts in South Korea, FML sold just barely less than four million copies in only its first 24 hours of release. This staggering figure makes Seventeen’s latest release one of the bestselling efforts of the year, and not just in South Korea, but worldwide.
Unlike its main competitor Circle (formerly Gaon), Hanteo tracks sales in real-time. This is why superfans tend to watch Hanteo more carefully the moment a CD is released.
FML occupies the top four spots on the Hanteo real-time physical sales chart, as the EP was released in several different versions. The standard edition of the EP sold just over two million copies and was the most popular take on the album. The Carat version, which refers to the name of the band’s fans, sold almost 1.5 million copies. Two other versions ranked just below, with both of them racking up sales sum well into the six digits.
With just under four million copies sold in a day, FML has likely made Hanteo history as the largest first-day sales sum. Seventeen is also likely well on their way to breaking the record for the largest debut week ever in South Korea.
It is important to note that the four million copies number being reported by Hanteo recognize actual sales, unlike in many Western markets, where figures often include streams and other forms of consumption. FML is already on track to end 2023 as one of the top-selling titles in the world, if not the No. 1 top-selling title.
FML is Seventeen’s tenth EP, or “mini-album,” a term that is more commonly used in South Korea. It is also the band’s first release of 2023 and is likely headed straight for the No. 1 spot on all of the music charts in the country.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2023/04/24/seventeens-new-ep-fml-sells-nearly-four-million-copies-in-just-one-day/