BTS have once again achieved a new career high in album sales, signaling an immensely successful return to group activities.
According to Hanteo Chart on March 27 KST, first-week sales for the group’s 5th full album ‘ARIRANG‘ wrapped up with a total of 4,169,464 copies sold. This is significant leap from the group’s previous best-selling first-week record with ‘Map of the Soul : 7‘, which sold approximately 3,370,000 copies.
Released on March 20 KST, ‘ARIRANG’ marked the group’s return with a new album after 3 years and 9 months. Despite their military service related inactivity during the great peak of K-Pop album sales around 2023~2024, the group still managed to claim a spot in the top 5 best-selling K-Pop albums in terms of first-week sales in 4th place, falling just behind Seventeen’s ‘Seventeenth Heaven‘ (5,091,8xx copies), Stray Kids’s ‘5-STAR‘ (4,617,4xx copies), and Seventeen’s ‘FML‘ (4,550,2xx copies).
Furthermore, ‘ARIRANG’ continues to reign on digital album charts around the globe. As of March 27 KST, the album has cumulatively reached #1 on iTunes album charts in a total of 115 countries. The title song, “Swim“, defended the #1 spot on Spotify‘s ‘Daily Top Songs Global‘ chart for 6 consecutive days from March 20-25.
Meanwhile, BTS will release a remix album titled ‘Keep Swimming‘ on March 27 at midnight EST / 1 PM KST, featuring a total of 7 remix versions of “Swim”, each curated to the tastes of the 7 members.
