NEW YORK, NEW YORK – FEBRUARY 21: (L-R) J-Hope, SUGA, Jungkook, Jimin, RM, V, and Jin of the K-pop … [+] boy band BTS visit the “Today” Show at Rockefeller Plaza on February 21, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)
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Big things were expected from BTS’s new album Map of the Soul: 7, but few could have predicted it would wind up being as massive a seller in the band’s home country as it has turned out to be, primarily because no title has performed this well…ever.
Map of the Soul: 7 passed the three million sales-mark just a short time ago, making history in the process. Reaching that milestone would be impressive no matter when it did so, but BTS’s latest has made it to that mark faster than anybody expected.
The Korean septet’s latest studio effort is now the first album in South Korean history to sell at least three million copies in its first week. The title’s total sum now stands at 3.009 million, and that’s sure to continue to rise. With at least three full days still left to go before the set’s first full tracking frame have officially come and gone, there’s no telling how many more fans of the vocal group will rush to pick up a copy of Map of the Soul: 7.
Perhaps even more impressive than the fact that Map of the Soul: 7 has now sold three million copies in under a week is the fact that the vast majority of those purchases took place in the first day the album was available. On Friday, February 21, the band’s latest offering sold an incredible 2.6 million copies, setting a new record for the largest one-day (and first-day) sales count.
Further highlighting the insane demand for new music from the seven-member vocal outfit, Map of the Soul: 7 didn’t drop until 6:00 PM KST on Friday, meaning ARMYs, the name chosen by BTS’s dedicated fan base, only had a few hours in which to rack up first-day sales. So, the album has now sold over three million copies in under a week, but 2.6 million of those took place in just six hours, so the rate at which Map of the Soul: 7 is moving units is slowing considerably.
That dip is to be expected with a high-profile release like this one, as blockbuster albums typically perform exceptionally well in the first few hours or days, and then they begin to slow down, at least comparatively, since most superfans have already picked up their copy.
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