Aju Business Daily

SEOUL -- BTS has set a new record in South Korea's music history by selling more than 3.7 million physical copies of "MAP OF THE SOUL : PERSONA" in 2019.

South Korea's state-run music ranking service, Gaon Chart, said in its 2019 album chart report that 3,718,230 physical album copies of MAP OF THE SOUL : PERSONA, released April last year, were sold as of December 31, 2019. Digital song and album sales were excluded.

It marked the biggest album sales since Gaon started provided ranking services in 2010. Boy band SEVENTEEN was second with 858,872 copies, followed by EXO with 766,294.

Because the global consumer trend of music purchasing has shifted from offline stores to convenient digital music services during the last decade, it is rare for an artist or a band to record such big physical album sales. Physical albums include albums that are created in a physical format such as an LP, CD, portable USB disk and cassette tape.  

According to Gmarket, an online shopping mall run by American online auction service eBay, BTS' physical albums were favored by foreign consumers. In 2018, about 21 percent of foreign consumers who purchased K-pop albums chose BTS.