GAON & Hanteo Album Records

We all know that KPoppers are closet statisticians.

And that means we like numbers in nice neat little columns for everyone to see.

We’ve crunched the numbers so that you don’t have to. Of course, if you want to do them yourself – our sources are GAON charts and for Hanteo we use Hanteo charts, and our sweet friends over at r/kpop and baidu who screencap (because we don’t have a Korean SSN and pay for a Hanteo membership). If you’re just looking for top daily/ general reference and don’t read Hangul – the Hanteo Site Map makes finding where you want to go easier… or you can just check @kpopalbumsales.

KpG NOTE:  we do not combine album versions or repacks because GAON and Hanteo do not combine them. Some news articles combine, but they have always been separated on Korean album charts, so we do as well.

<><><><><>

Gaon  Album Records:

KpG NOTE: Why are some GAON preorder numbers higher than end of year GAON sales? Because stores are allowed to return overstock. GAON is a constantly fluctuating chart, unlike Hanteo which is fixed sales.

Highest End of Year Sales:

2018 — 2,197,808 — BTS — Love Yourself: Answer
2017 — 1,493,443 — BTS — Love Yourself: Her
2016 — 751,301 — BTS — WINGS
2015 —  478,856 — EXO — Exodus (K Ver,)
2014 —  385,047 — EXO-k — Overdose
2013 — 335,823 — EXO — XOXO (Kiss Ver.)
2012 — 356,431 — Super Junior — Sexy Free & Single
2011 — 385, 348 — SNSD — The Boys
2010 — not listed (chart was not a full year)

Fun Facts:

• EXO’s The War sold over 800,000 global stock preorders in just 8 days. A new record at the time.
• BTS’s Love Yourself sold over 1,000,000 Korean stock preorders in just 6 days (global preorders had not yet been counted). A new record.

Hanteo Album Records:

Highest End of Year Sales by Year:

2018 — 1,269,290 — BTS — Love Yourelf: Tear
2017 — 1,011,011 — BTS — Love Yourself: Her
2016 — 537,820 — BTS — WINGS
2015 — 320,852 — EXO — Exodus-K
2014 — 233,367 — EXO-k –Overdose
2013 — 239,627 — EXO — Growl (Kiss Ver.)
2012 — 178,333 — Super Junior — Sexy Free & Single (A Ver.)
2011 — 200,434 — Super Junior — Mr. Simple (A Ver.)
2010 — 132,152 — Super Junior — Bonamana (A Ver.)
2009 — 128,755 — G-Dragon — Hearbreaker
2008 — 338,391 — TVXQ — Mirotic
2007 — 146,857 — SG Wannabe — The Sentimental Chord

KpG NOTE:  Sales data prior to 2010 is *ahem* scarce. Most Hanteo information can be confirmed via MIAK (Music Industry Association of Korea), but in 2009 Hanteo was the only published record. 2009 is also the year they began charging memberships to see the numbers due to places like Cyworld that also began their own “certified charting”. A big thank you to the lovely fanbases and kpoppers who have screencapped to preserve this data.

Fun Facts:

• TVXQ’s Mirotic remained the best selling album on Hanteo for 7 years until 2016 with 338,391 album sales.
• Highest selling female soloist on Hanteo is Taeyeon (SNSD). Her album, I, recorded 85,850 end of year sales on Hanteo for 2016. She broke that record in 2017 with 105,913 units for her album My Voice.
• Best selling Korean album of all time is Kim Gun Mo’s Mis-Encounter (1995) with over 3,300,000 physical sales.

<><><><><><><>

If you need help on how GAON and Hanteo work, we have a super simple explanation here.

Our explanation is super simple. It’ll blow your mind.