Fans of the Korean K-pop group BTS hold up signs before a concert at the GNP Stadium in Mexico City, Mexico, May 7. EPA-Yonhap
Latin American fans are powering a surge in global streams of K-pop supergroup BTS' latest album, with Brazil and Mexico surpassing Korea in the album's first-week streaming figures, U.S. music industry data showed.
BTS' fifth studio album, "Arirang," released March 20, recorded 739.1 million streams worldwide in its first week, according to the data released Wednesday (U.S. time) by entertainment data tracker Luminate.
The figure marks the highest first-week total for any album released this year, and the biggest since Taylor Swift's "The Life of a Showgirl" logged 1.3 billion streams in October last year, Luminate said.
The United States led first-week streams with 115 million, followed by Brazil with 78.6 million and Mexico with 75.9 million. Korea ranked fourth with 58.3 million, underscoring the growing weight of Latin American audiences in the global K-pop market. Japan came in fifth with 48.2 million streams.
YouTube data reflected a similar trend. Between April 6 and May 3, Brazil and Mexico ranked third and fourth, respectively, in viewership of BTS-related videos, joined by Argentina and Peru in the platform's top 10 markets. Korea placed sixth.
The group's popularity in the region has also translated into strong concert demand.
The K-pop septet drew a combined 150,000 fans over three days in Mexico City on May 7, 9-10 (local time) on its "Arirang" world tour, with tickets selling out as soon as they became available. Thousands more gathered outside the venue to enjoy the festivities. The Los Angeles Times estimated about 35,000 fans assembled nearby in the evenings of the second and third shows.
On May 6, about 50,000 fans swarmed the Zocalo square in front of the National Palace when the band met Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. The group held talks with the president and received a commemorative plaque from the government.
BTS is set to return to Latin America in October for stadium concerts in Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Brazil as part of the ongoing world tour. The tour will see the group become the first Korean act to perform at major venues, including Bogota's Estadio El Campin and Buenos Aires' Estadio Unico de La Plata, as well as the first to hold a standalone concert at Santiago's Estadio Nacional. Additional shows have already been added in Lima, Santiago and Buenos Aires to meet strong demand.
Source: Korea Times News
