BTS's album 'Arirang' has maintained its position at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for the second consecutive week.
According to a preview article posted on Billboard's official website on the 6th, BTS's fifth studio album 'Arirang' has topped the main album chart 'Billboard 200' for the week of April 11. This achievement marks BTS as the first Korean artist to hold the top spot on this chart for two consecutive weeks.
Billboard reported, "'Arirang' recorded 187,000 album units this week. Of these, 114,000 were pure album sales (physical and digital purchases). SEA units (sales converted from streaming counts) accounted for 65,000, and the remaining 8,000 were TEA units (sales converted from digital track downloads)."
'Arirang' debuted at No. 1 on the 'Billboard 200' for the week of April 4, becoming the group's seventh album to reach the top of this chart. In its first week, it recorded 641,000 album units, setting the highest weekly performance for a group album since Billboard introduced unit counting in December 2014. Additionally, with 532,000 pure album sales, it achieved the highest weekly sales for a group album in over a decade.
Released on March 20, 'Arirang' continues to dominate global music charts in its second week, entering a long-run popularity phase. BTS maintained their No. 1 position in three categories on Spotify's latest weekly chart (tracking period: March 27-April 2) - 'Weekly Top Albums', 'Weekly Top Songs', and 'Weekly Top Artists' globally for two consecutive weeks.
According to Australia's ARIA chart released on April 3, the album remained at the top of the 'Top 50 Albums' chart for the second week. It also secured the No. 2 spot on Germany's Official Music Chart (Offizielle Deutsche Charts for April 3) and France's SNEP 'Top Albums' (tracking period: March 27-April 2), while landing at No. 4 on the UK's Official Albums Top 100 (April 3-April 9).
Meanwhile, BTS continues to dominate domestic music shows with their title track 'SWIM'. Without any broadcast appearances, they have achieved a total of nine wins on SBS 'Inkigayo', MBC 'Music Core', KBS2 'Music Bank', Mnet 'M Countdown', and MBC M 'Show! Champion'.
Kim Ji-won, Ten Asia Reporter one@tenasia.co.kr