Fewer than 4 in 100 K-pop groups ever sell 300,000 of an album: study

Nearly half of Korean idol groups vanish within three years of debut, and only 3.55 percent ever sell 300,000 copies of a one album, an analysis of K-pop acts over the past three decades showed.

The findings confirmed that while the K-pop industry has gone global, its rewards have narrowed to only a handful of names.

The study was published late last month in the Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association by Kim Jeong-seop, a professor at the Graduate School of Cultural Industry & Arts at Sungshin Women's University.

It covers all 1,182 groups registered with the Korea Popmusic Industry Association that debuted between 1996, the year boy band H.O.T. set the template for modern idol production, and the end of 2025.

Soloists and coed acts were excluded, leaving 588 girl groups and 594 boy groups, with an average of 39.4 debuts a year.

Ninety-seven groups, or 8.21 percent, have sold more than 100,000 copies of an album, the threshold at which a working fandom is generally considered to have formed.

A total of 42 cleared 300,000, the figure the industry uses as the break-even point o