K-Pop Paradox: Why Some Acts Find Global Success But Face a Disconnect Back Home
Written by djfrosty on February 21, 2025
ATEEZ has emerged as one of the most popular K-pop groups in the U.S., achieving milestones that defy industry norms. They became the first group unaffiliated with the “Big Four” entertainment companies, such as SM, JYP, YG, and HYBE, to top the Billboard 200 chart. In 2024, they became the first K-pop boy group to perform at Coachella and claimed their second Billboard 200 No. 1 with their 11th mini album, Golden Hour: Part 2. Yet, their name remains curiously absent from Korea’s domestic music scene.
Album sales paint a striking picture. Their 11th mini album sold over one million copies in its first week. However, their Korea streaming performance tells a different story. ATEEZ is nowhere to be found on Korea’s YouTube Music Hot 100 chart or the charts of local platforms like Melon, Genie, Bugs, and FLO. Spotify data reveals their most streamed cities are Jakarta, Bangkok, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore, notably excluding Seoul.
Stray Kids, under JYP Entertainment, face a similar paradox. Their album HOP made history in 2024 as the first to achieve six consecutive Billboard 200 No. 1 albums by a group. This record-breaking achievement prompted the announcement of a 20-stop global stadium tour in 2025, solidifying their global appeal. Yet in Korea, their title track “Chk Chk Boom” failed to claim the top spot on major streaming charts. Like ATEEZ, their strongest Spotify numbers come from Indonesia, Japan, Chile, Brazil, and Malaysia.
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K-pop thrives globally, driven by its fiercely loyal fanbase. According to IFPI’s Global Music Report, SEVENTEEN’s FML and Stray Kids’ 5-STAR ranked first and second, respectively, in global album sales for 2023. In IFPI’s Global Artist Chart, SEVENTEEN, Stray Kids, Tomorrow X Together, and NewJeans all placed in the Top 10. However, this global success highlights a surprising shift: K-pop’s domestic market no longer mirrors its international dominance.
Data from the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute (KCTI) illustrates this disparity. In 2023, K-pop’s overseas revenue reached 1.2377 trillion KRW (approximately $950 million USD), while HYBE reported 63.3% of its earnings from international markets in the first half of 2023. JYP followed with 52.2% and YG at 48.6%. Luminate’s Mapping Out K-pop’s Global Dominance report placed Korea as the fourth largest consumer of K-pop, trailing Japan, the U.S., and Indonesia.
Then why is K-pop less visible in its home country?
To better understand this, one must revisit the mid-2010’s, a period when K-pop began its meteoric rise in the U.S., spearheaded by BTS’s success at the Billboard Music Awards and their domination of Western charts. Back home, K-pop reigned supreme in Korea’s music scene, led by heavyweights like BLACKPINK, TWICE, EXO and SEVENTEEN, while audition programs such as Produce 101 captivated audiences and amplified K-pop’s domestic appeal.
Ironically, as K-pop’s global footprint grew, its local presence waned. The absence of a trusted official chart to represent Korea’s music industry dealt a major blow. Once reliable indicators of popularity, real-time charts on platforms like Melon and Genie fell into disrepute after controversies surrounding chart manipulation and ballot rigging in audition programs. These incidents eroded public trust in K-pop as a genre.
By 2018, the industry shifted its focus from broad audience appeal to catering to core fandoms. Fanbases, in turn drove album sales to record-breaking heights, pushing physical sales to over 116 million units in 2023, a tenfold increase over the past decade. Billboard 200 chart topping acts, which were once a rarity, have now expanded to include a slew of K-pop groups like SuperM, Tomorrow x Together, and NewJeans.
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Meanwhile, K-pop’s evolution into a fandom centric business model has redefined its strategy. Entertainment companies prioritize retaining and strengthening existing fanbases over attracting casual listeners and songs are designed to reinforce a group’s identity rather than to appeal to the masses. Global promotions, such as BTS’s and BLACKPINK’s massive stadium tours in the U.S. and Japan, underscore this trend, with groups like Stray Kids and ATEEZ leading the charge in self-produced artistry.
In Korea, K-pop activities increasingly resemble fan service. Despite low domestic ratings, programs like Music Bank, M Countdown, and Inkigayo remain important platforms for launching new songs and generating live performance clips for social media platforms such as YouTube. This demonstrates that while K-pop may no longer be music for everyone, its transformation into a niche-driven, global phenomenon is undeniable.
However, not all groups face this disconnect. Acts like aspea, IVE, SEVENTEEN and NewJeans continue to dominate Korean media and achieve commercial success domestically. Across the board, K-pop’s overall revenues keep climbing, driven largely by its international market.
As K-pop popularity continues to grow around the global, its strategy continues to evolve. English lyrics, international artist collaborations, and streamlined promotional cycles reflect its shift toward the global stage. Circle Chart data shows that the percentage of English lyrics in girl group releases reached 41.3% in 2023, up nearly 19% from 2018. For boy groups, the figure stood at 24.3%. Major comebacks are now followed by world tours, with U.S. talk shows often serving as debut platforms for new releases.
As K-pop increasingly focuses on global markets, can it find a balance between domestic recognition and international acclaim? Will it achieve a universal appeal similar to Latin music, fostering sustainable support both at home and abroad? The dual identity of K-pop, its paradoxical success offers both challenges and opportunities for the industry’s future.
This article is courtesy of Billboard Korea.