MOTS: 7 was the best-selling Korean album(in terms of physical sales) but its record was broken later in 2023.(In terms of SPS units, MOTS: Persona remains the best-selling Korean album with more than 13M units)
According to GWR, MOTS: 7 still holds the record for the best-selling album in South Korea.[Source]
MOTS: 7 is the first Album by a Korean Act in history to surpass 5M sales. It is also the First Album to be certified 5x Million on Circle(Gaon).
MOTS: Persona beat a 24 year old sales record set by Kim Gunmo in 1995(The rest of the top 5 are from pre-streaming era, which makes this record even more mind-boggling).[Source][Source]
MOTS: 7 broke LY: Persona's record and became the highest selling album for all time in terms of"Best-selling Album by Year”.[Source]
BTS is the Korean artist to have 8 albums with more than 2M physical album sales(without any repacks).[Source]
MOTS: 7 had the highest first-week sales in Gaon Albums Chart history. Its record was later broken in 2023.[Source][Source][Source]
2 Cool 4 Skool is the longest charting album in the Top 100 of the Gaon Album Weekly chart(431 weeks).[Source]
O!RUL8,2? is the 2nd longest charting album in the Top 100 of the Gaon Album Weekly chart.
HYYH: Young Forever got over 300,000 physical pre-orders in less than a week which was a big deal that time because the #1 best selling albums in Gaon Year-End chart(2010-2015) ranged in the 300K.[Source]
MOTS: 7 broke Gaon Chart’s record for the highest sales achieved by an album over the course of a single year.[Source][Source]
MOTS: 7 broke MOTS: Persona’s record and became the highest album sales ever recorded in the history of the Gaon monthly album chart.[Source][Source]
LY: Answer is the first album to sell more than 2 million copies since 2000.[Source]
With 12 albums selling more than a million, BTS is the Korean Artist with the most million selling albums.[Source]
BTS is the first Artist to have >1M sales for both Album(Wings) and it's repack(YNWA) in Gaon Albums chart.
BTS has 7 albums in the Top 10 Best Selling Korean Albums.[Source]
In 2017, LY: Her achieved a Gaon chart record in 16 Years with more than 1 million Albums sold since g.o.d. LY: Her is the first pure 1M seller in South Korea since g.o.d in 2001.[Source][Source][Source]
According to the KOFICE's(Korean Foundation for International Culture Exchange) annual report(2017 hallyu paper), it was officially announced that BTS is the first pure million seller in South Korea after g.o.d. in 16 years.[Source][Source][Source → Click 2017 한류백서(2018-05-08)][Source]
BTS is the first Korean Act to achieve over 1 million copies just in domestic pre-orders with Love Yourself Her.[Source][Source 2]
BTS Becomes the 1st Artist To Receive Official Million Certification From Gaon.[Source][Source 2][Source 3]
BTS got a hat trick with 3 albums getting >1M domestic pre-orders with the LY Series.[Source]
BTS surpassed their own record when they got a total of 4.02M WW pre-orders with MOTS: 7.[Source]
BTS is the first Korean artist to sell more than 2 million(approx. 2.6M) copies of their albums in one year(2017) since Seo Taiji and Boys, who sold 2,220,000 albums in 1992.[Source 1][Source 2]
BTS is the first Korean Act to have 10 albums become 1M+ sellers without repackage.(Wings, YNWA, LY Her, LY Tear, LY Answer, MOTS: Persona, MOTS: 7, BE, Butter HYYH: Young Forever).
MOTS: 7 sold 4.11 million copies in the first nine days of its release.[Source]
LY Tear’s first monthly sales in Gaon Chart were 1.66M in just 14 days.[Source][Source]
In 2018, BTS sold over 1.66 million copies of an album in under a month(in the first 2 weeks) since release for the first time in 18 years. This marked the highest monthly sales of any one album(not including repackaged albums) released in Korea since 2000, when ballad singer Jo Sung Mo sold 1,705,127 copies of his third album in a single month.[Source][Source 2]
BTS is the First non-Big 3 and non-SM Act to go #1 in the Gaon Yearly Albums Chart with Wings in 2016. Only Acts from SM were holding the #1 spot for 6 years till BTS came and broke the 6-year streak.[Source]
BTS is the Artist with the most #1 Best-selling Albums per Year in Gaon Yearly Albums Chart(#1 for 7 consecutive years so far).[Source]
BTS is the 1st Artist to receive Double Million Certification from Gaon. They are the 1st to achieve 2M sales with a single album in 18 years(the last record was set in 2000) and the 5th act to achieve 2M single album sales following Kim Gun-mo, Seo Taiji and Boys, Shin Seung Hun, and Jo Sung-mo.[Source][Source][Source]
BTS is the 1st Artist to receive 3 Million and 4 Million Certifications from Gaon.[Source][Source]
BTS is the first artist to have 2 albums with 4M Certification in Gaon.[Source]
BTS is the fastest act to surpass 10M album sales on Gaon. This is an achievement in 5 years, 6 months since they debuted, the shortest time for a Korean artist since 2000.[Source][Source][Source]
BTS is the first Artist to surpass 20M, 30M, 40M physical album sales in Gaon.
BTS is the best selling artist on Gaon of all time(physicals only).[Source]
BTS is the best-selling South Korean artist in history surpassing Shin Seung Hun.[Source][Source][Source]
BTS sold 5,150,410 albums on Gaon in 2018 alone, making them the highest-selling Korean artist in a year.[Source]
BTS has sold over 6M albums on Gaon in 2019 breaking their own 2018 record.[Source]
BTS broke their own 2019 record with 2020 becoming the year with the highest album sales for BTS with 9.33M sales.[Source][Source]
BTS is the Korean artist with the largest international sales in 2018. According to Gmarket,'Love Yourself: Tear' was the #1 selling album last year to overseas customers. The % of sales was 21% for all BTS albums, meaning that BTS by themselves made up 1/5th of all sales. The number of international sales of books/CDs went up 62% since 2017, and the number of idol goods sold overseas also jumped to 54%.[Source][Source]
BTS is the first Korean boy group to ever have an album and title track certified a Platinum certification by Gaon.[Source]
BTS WORLD OST is the best-selling OST album in Gaon.
BTS WORLD OST broke a 17-year record of the OST album"Winter Sonata"(which sold 402k copies that time) and became the best-selling OST album in South Korea.[Source][Source]
BTS not only surpassed their 2018 total sales, but their 2013-2017 combined sales as well in 2019.[Source]
Secretary General of KMCA said that it was BTS who opened the era of selling 1M albums when LY: Her sold nearly 1.5M in 2017. KMCA and a survey conducted by Gaon Chart confirmed that not only has BTS sold millions of albums to dominate the market, but because of BTS, awareness of K-pop artists increased worldwide and BTS opened a new market, creating a trickle-down effect by increasing the sales of Kpop artists currently active at the same time.[Source][Source]
BTS single-handedly outsold 2 of the Big 3(YG and JYP) in the yearly total album sales in 2015.[Source]
Physical