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| ▲ This photo, provided by Big Hit Music, shows BTS. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
SEOUL, Oct. 30 (Yonhap) -- The Korea Music Contents Association (KMCA) issued a press release on Friday that repeatedly insisted on reviewing the possibility of BTS' exemption from the mandatory military service, saying, "The recent rapid growth of the K-pop album market has been significantly impacted by BTS."
On the recent "Gaon Chart," an online music site run by KMCA, the annual album sales of BTS' fourth full-length album "Map of the Soul: 7," which was released last year, totaled to 4,376,975.
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| ▲ This photo, provided by Gaon Chart, shows annual album sales of K-pop artists who ranked No. 1 and No. 30. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
The figure is 11 times higher than K-pop group Girls' Generation's 2011 album "The Boys," which ranked No. 1 in annual album sales with 385,348 copies.
BTS' album sales is also 22 times larger than Korea's vocal trio SG Wannabe's fourth album "The Sentimental Chord," which ranked first in sales in 2007 with 199,998 copies.
"In the early 2000s, even top artists could not sell 200,000 copies, but ever since the number of idol groups have rapidly grown, sales nowadays have increased more than 10 times compared to 10 years ago," KMCA said.
In particular, KMCA's secretary general, Choi Kwang-ho, explained, "The artists who have started to stand out and lead K-pop's music market since 2016 is BTS," adding, "Every time BTS releases an album, the group break records and set new sales records by selling an unbelievable amount of album copies."
"This phenomenon has driven the K-pop's album market, and annual album sales of top 30 artists to increase at a similar rate," Choi added.
"BTS did not monopolize the market by being the only K-pop artists to sell millions of albums, but also showcased a "trickle-down effect" where other K-pop artists gained global awareness and pioneered markets through BTS," KMCA once again emphasized.
"This is why KMCA can strongly argue that BTS, which has a profound impact on the expansion of the K-pop industry, deserves to be benefited from military services," KMCA added.
In a telephone interview with Yonhap News Agency, secretary general Choi said, "The discussion scheduled to be held with the National Defense Committee in November is realistically the last opportunity," referring to a revision in Korea's Military Service Act that allows popular cultural artists with high national interest to serve an alternative service.
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