ITZY, one of the most successful female K-pop groups, debuted in 2019 with the album ‘ICY,’ with which they entered the market with not very impressive sales. According to reports, around 32,000 copies of the album were sold on its first week. However, with each subsequent release, sales grew significantly, and with their eighth album, ‘KILL MY DOUBT’, they reached 823,000 copies sold in one week in August 2023. The upward trend continued for the first eight albums of the group, until the ninth album, which has just been released and is turning out to be a sales failure compared to previous releases.
‘BORN TO BE’, the ninth and latest ITZY album, sold 276.000 copies during its first week, a 66% drop in comparison to the sales of the 8th album, which, as mentioned, sold 823.000.
The data sparked a discussion among followers of the group and Kpop listeners in general, who can’t seem to agree on the cause of the drop. Some suggest that their image may have been tarnished by a controversy, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Others implied that the fact that one of the members is on a hiatus and did not partake in the promotion of the album could have affected the expectancy for the release altogether, though it’s also debatable since it’s not common for this to happen.
Other possible reasons include the drop in album sales that has been growing for quite some time, affecting other groups as well, or that the general public is not as interested as they were when ITZY debuted. Some have even gone as far as suggesting that the music is just not catchy, or straight up bad, which is also highly debatable.
But what do you think is the real reason why the sales have had such a drop? Let us know in the comments.
