NewJeans's album sales dip amidst ADOR-HYBE showdown
NewJeans, a popular girl group, has experienced a significant drop in album sales with their latest single How Sweet selling 46.3% less than their previous mini album Get Up. Hanteo Chart reported that the initial sales volume of How Sweet, released on May 24, was 8,84,717 copies compared to Get Up which sold 16,50,181 copies initially. The release of How Sweet coincided with a management dispute between NewJeans's agency ADOR and its parent label, HYBE.
'How Sweet' sales plummetted after initial release
Despite selling over 8,10,000 copies on its first day, daily sales of How Sweet fell sharply from the second day onwards. By the end of the initial counting period, only about 70,000 additional copies had been sold. An industry analysis suggests that this decline may be due to accumulated fatigue among fans resulting from years of intense competition for initial sales volume. "The HYBE internal dispute...may have weakened the fandom's unity," commented an official from the music industry.
K-pop album market experiencing slowdown, only some successes
The K-pop album market has been experiencing a slowdown in growth with other groups also seeing a decrease in album sales. However, monthly album sales in April surpassed the 10M mark for the first time this year, reaching 12.93M units according to the Korea Music Contents Association. Fellow fourth-generation girl groups IVE and aespa have achieved success with their recent releases, selling 1.31M and 1.15M copies, respectively, of their latest albums.
NewJeans maintains popularity despite sales drop
Despite the sales drop, NewJeans's songs How Sweet and Bubble Gum have ranked second and third on major charts such as Melon, Bugs, and Flo. An industry official stated that "since the music market is going through a transition period, it is difficult to pinpoint the cause of the decline in sales." The official added that it would be necessary to "watch the cumulative sales trend more closely." NewJeans will release their debut single Supernatural in Japan on June 21.
