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In 2025, the best-selling physical music album in South Korea was "KARMA" by K-pop boy group Stray Kids, having sold around 3.4 million copies. With many parts of the global music industry moving away from physical sales to digital downloads and streaming, K-pop is a prominent exception. Through a combination of buying incentives, fandom culture, and the increasing popularity of K-pop, the genre has retained its larger focus on physical sales compared to many other genres. 

Music consumption in South Korea

The most common purpose for purchasing physical albums is for collection purposes, and to directly support an artist, rather than utilizing the physical CD to listen to the music. The vast majority of South Koreans listened to music on their smartphones according to a 2024 survey, with CD players only being used by a small share of the population. Music streaming and downloading services are popular and enjoy frequent use.

Incentives to buy physical albums

One famous example of incentivizing the buying of physical albums that commonly occurs in the U.S. music industry is the bundling of merchandising or concert tickets with physical albums. This is not a common practice in the K-pop industry. Instead, each album offers unique merchandising and photobook concepts. Oftentimes, multiple versions of the same album will be released alongside several randomized collectible photo cards. Additionally, gaining entrance to fan signs is usually based on a lottery system which is entered by purchasing physical albums, with one album equaling one ticket. This phenomenon is mainly confined to the K-pop industry specifically, rather than being a feature of the larger South Korean music industry. As such, successful releases tend to differ between physical and digital rankings, with physical sales reflecting fandom buying power, and digital sales reflecting the taste of the general public. Physical rankings are generally dominated by K-pop artists, while digital rankings tend to be more diverse, with favored genres being ballads, OSTs, and trot music.