Fewer than 4 in 100 K-pop groups ever sell 300,000 of an album: study - The Korea Times

K-pop girl group TWICE performs at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, June 10, 2023, during the group's fifth world tour, "READY TO BE." Courtesy of JYP Entertainment

Nearly half of Korean idol groups vanish within three years of debut, and only 3.55 percent ever sell 300,000 copies of a one album, an analysis of K-pop acts over the past three decades showed.

The findings confirmed that while the K-pop industry has gone global, its rewards have narrowed to only a handful of names.

The study was published late last month in the Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association by Kim Jeong-seop, a professor at the Graduate School of Cultural Industry & Arts at Sungshin Women's University.

It covers all 1,182 groups registered with the Korea Popmusic Industry Association that debuted between 1996, the year boy band H.O.T. set the template for modern idol production, and the end of 2025. Soloists and coed acts were excluded, leaving 588 girl groups and 594 boy groups, with an average of 39.4 debuts a year.