Globalization of K-pop girl groups accelerates.. 96% of BLACKPINK’s videos watched abroad

▲This photo, a captured image from VMA twitter, shows BLACKPINK. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

▲This photo, provided by Reseracher Kim, shows YouTube views of BLACKPINK by countries. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

▲This photo, provided by Source Music, shows Le Sserafim. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

SEOUL, Oct. 10 (Yonhap) —Nationalities of girl group consumers are diversifying as K-pop is gaining global popularity.

According to chief researcher Kim Jin-woo of Circle Chart (formerly Gaon Chart) on Monday, Korea accounted for only 3.7% of YouTube views of 2022 mega girl group BLACKPINK.

India had the largest share with 10.0%, followed by Thailand with 8.4%, Indonesia with 6.9%, the Philippines with 5.8%, Mexico with 5.5% and Vietnam with 5.1%. Brazil was 4.5% and the US was 4.1%.

Looking at the number of views on YouTube, the main channel where music fans around the world consume K-pop, by country can help determine which country enjoys listening to which K-pop group.

BLACKPINK has 82.1 million YouTube subscribers, the highest among singers around the world.

BLACKPINK’s YouTube views in Korea was 4.4% in 2019, but it decreased 0.7%p in three years. This can be interpreted as the expansion of the global fandom.

Researcher Kim said, "In 2019, 30.8% viewers were from Indonesia and Thailand, showing a somewhat biased in a specific country,” adding, “But the combined share decreased to almost half, 15.3%, this year.”

Kim also said, "There is only one country India with a ratio more than 10%,” adding, “ratio between countries are evenly distributed.”

Thailand is the home country of member Lisa, and It is where they gained popularity in the early stage. But as the fandom has expanded worldwide, it has succeeded in being loved by various countries other than “hometowns” such as Korea and Thailand.

Similar phenomena can also be seen in other popular girl groups.

When researcher Kim looked at the YouTube views of major girl groups in Korea, IVE 24.6%, NewJeans 36.9%, Le Sserafim 17.8%, Aespa 21.2%, and TWICE 6.2%.

It can be seen that IVE, NewJeans,and Le Sserafim, rookie groups who debuted less than a year ago and have relatively little overseas activities, are already catching global attention.

TWICE in its 7th year of debut shows larger globalization of its fandom according to their year of debut, YouTube views reaching 93.8%. In particular, as it has been gaining popularity in Japan, the proportion of views in Japan accounted for 21.8%.

Researcher Kim said, "This year, physical K-pop albums are expected to sell around 70 million copies, a significant increase from last year,” adding, “The number of K-pop album exporting countries are increasing accordingly.”

K-pop albums were exported to only 21 countries in 2016, but this number quadrupled to 95 countries this year.

Since K-pop girl groups are gaining popularity in the global market, major agencies are also working to target overseas markets rather than domestic markets.

On Weverse, a fan community where K-pop groups such as Le Sserafim and fromis_9 use, major announcements are provided in four languages, English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.

Weverse Shop, its own shopping mall that sells albums, also supports international shipping.

More K-pop groups are increasing the proportion of English lyrics in their songs for overseas markets. Like BLACKPINK, there are many cases where groups minimize their activities in domestic TV music shows and concentrate on overseas programs and world tours.

Kim said, "BLACKPINK’s 'Pink Venom' shows greater results overseas. It seems like this is caused by songs produced to target the global market, rather than the domestic listeners.”

US Billboard also analyzed BLACKPINK’s first place on the ‘Billboard 200' as "Unlike the other two K-pop albums (BTS and Stray Kids) that topped the chart this year, BLACKPINK’s songs in their second album ‘'BORN PINK' is written in English.”

In line with the globalization of girl groups, music agencies are also diversifying the members’ nationalities, previously mainly of Korea, the United States, Japan, and China. Shanti of girl group Lapilus is of Filipino and Argentine nationality, and Dita of Secret Number is Indonesian.

(This article is translated from Korean to English by Jiwon Woo.)
 
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