Seventeen, one of Korea’s most prominent idol groups, has consistently drawn attention for their remarkable achievements.

Since their debut in 2015, the group has released 17 albums, nearly all of which have achieved million-seller status. Their 2022 album Face the Sun alone is nearing 10 million equivalent album sales, contributing significantly to the group’s overall total of 60 million.

Looking at the big picture: Seventeen

Seventeen, often referred to as SVT, debuted on May 26, 2015, under Pledis Entertainment. The group is known for its self-producing model, which involves members taking active roles in songwriting, choreography, and production. This approach has set them apart in the K-pop industry.

Formation and structure

Seventeen consists of 13 members divided into three units: Hip-Hop, Vocal, and Performance. Each unit focuses on specific strengths, allowing the group to cover diverse musical styles. Their pre-debut reality show, Seventeen Project: Big Debut Plan, introduced them to the public and showcased their preparation process. This early exposure helped them build a dedicated fanbase, known as CARATs, before their official debut.

Debut and Early Work

Their debut EP, 17 Carat, was released in May 2015. It gained attention internationally, reaching the top 10 in the US World Album chart. The follow-up EP, Boys Be, performed well commercially too and earned the group multiple rookie awards.

In 2016, Seventeen released their first full-length album, Love & Letter. It marked a turning point, securing their first major music show wins. Later that year, Going Seventeen further boosted their profile. Tracks like Pretty U, Very Nice and Boom Boom became popular among fans.

Continued Growth

Seventeen, praised for their performances on stage, pursued its heavy release schedule as well. Their 2017 albums, Al1 and Teen, Age, shifted towards more mature themes. The song Don't Wanna Cry became a major hit, and both albums quickly shipped 300,000 units.

During this time, Seventeen also began expanding their reach into Japan. Their fanbase in the region grew steadily, laying the foundation for their future success in the market.

Expanding Influence

In 2018, the group released You Make My Day and You Made My Dawn. These albums continued to refine their sound and improve their position among the leading K-pop group. The title track Home was particularly well-received, earning critical and commercial success.

By 2019, Seventeen had established themselves as a major act in Korea and abroad. Their third full-length album, An Ode, marked a significant milestone. It received Album of the Year at the Asia Artist Awards and performed well in international markets. It shipped close to a million units upon release. Their Ode to You world tour further highlighted their growing global presence.

Major Commercial Success

Seventeen achieved their first million-seller album with Heng:garæ in 2020. The album’s lead single, Left & Right, demonstrated a playful and lighthearted concept. Later that year, the group released Semicolon, a special album aimed at conveying messages of comfort and reflection. It also eclipsed the million mark on Korean Gaon (now Circle) chart.

Their success continued with Your Choice in 2021 and Attacca later that year. Both albums debuted at the top of domestic and international charts, selling 1.5 million and 2 million by the end of the year, respectively. Both made the 2021 top 10 album sales chart from the IFPI.

Face the Sun (2022) marked another high point in their career, achieving unbelievable sales. Along with its repackaged album, Sector 17, which featured new tracks like _World, both versions sold close to 5 million during the year.

The flow of smash releases did not slow down. In 2023, FML topped 6 million units, landing at #1 on IFPI's annual listing for pure sales ahead of blockbusters from Taylor Swift or Stray Kids.

Current status and legacy

Seventeen is recognized as a key player in modern K-pop. Their self-producing model has influenced other groups and highlighted the value of artist-driven creativity. Over time, they have maintained strong album sales and expanded their international fanbase.

The group’s discography reflects a balance between experimentation and consistency. Their ability to adapt while retaining their identity has been central to their success. As they continue to release new music and tour globally, Seventeen remains a significant force in the industry.

With BTS on hiatus, Seventeen has been steadily catching up in career album sales on South Korean charts, becoming K-pop industry leaders at the moment. Today, we will review and share their numbers across all formats.

Seventeen album sales

Updated studio album sales & comments

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Seventeen’s album sales illustrate their steady evolution from rookies to leading K-pop figures. Early works like 17 Carat (230,000) and Boys Be (365,000) laid a solid foundation. Over the next few years, albums such as Love & Letter (645,000) and Teen, Age (790,000) reflected consistent growth as their fanbase expanded.

A major breakthrough came with An Ode (1.7 million), which marked their first million-seller. From this point, their releases demonstrated exponential growth. Heng:garæ (2 million) marked the start of their "million-seller" era, while subsequent albums like Attacca (3 million) pushed their sales even higher.

The group reached a career peak with Face the Sun (6.87 million), their best-selling album to date. This number includes sales from the Sector 17 package. FML (6.44 million) followed closely, continuing their streak of monumental success. More recently, Seventeenth Heaven (5.89 million) and Spill the Feels (3.84 million) highlight their ability to sustain exceptional sales despite frequent releases.

Due to the nature of Korean charts, which reflect global shipments rather than local sales, it's difficult to know exactly how many copies were sold in their homeland. FML and Face the Sun both likely topped 2 million units there.

Seventeen are also extraordinary sellers in both China and Japan. In the former, they used to ship 200,000 per release in early 2020s, but that number exploded to 2.15 million with FML. These numbers reflect physical units, as they also sold 1.6 million from downloads, but these details are listed later on. As for Japan, their 2020s releases have been averaging over half a million sales, with a phenomenal career total of 8 million album sales.

These numbers are in the same league as BTS. The story isn't as true elsewhere, but they still do wonders. In the US, they are up to 6 #1 albums in the Top Album Sales chart.

It’s important to acknowledge that some fans of other K-pop artists have raised concerns about Seventeen’s album sales, citing the methods used by their label. One such method involves including randomized photocards in album packages, which encourages fans to purchase multiple copies.

In the UK, charts have implemented measures to prevent Seventeen’s albums from charting due to these practices, which explains the absence of their sales figures in our table, despite their comparable success in countries like Germany and France. Of course, we still account for these sales in European and Global totals.

While these concerns are valid, particularly regarding the environmental impact of discarded packaging, it’s important not to diminish Seventeen’s achievements. Recent reissues of their early albums have demonstrated that the group is capable of selling millions of copies of legacy recordings without relying on these additional incentives. Their sales figures would still be impressive even without these extras, which are common among many K-pop groups which share the same labels.

Want to compare the act's albums with others?

Seventeen songs sales

Below, we list down results from the artist through physical sales, digital sales and streaming.

Please be aware that when the artist is regarded as the lead act, they are rewarded with 100% of these units. However, featured acts share a 50% piece of the total.

Physical singles

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Physical singles have largely disappeared from most markets, except in Japan, where they remain incredibly popular. As previously mentioned, Seventeen are immensely popular in Japan. They released five singles that have collectively sold 1.85 million copies. Their most recent release, Shohikigen, debuted at number one on the Oricon chart this week with 418,000 copies sold. It will eclipse Fallin' Flower and Not Alone as their top seller.

Japanese products tend to perform well overseas as imports, and Seventeen's singles are no exception. An additional 30% of their sales came from international markets, bringing their total to 2.4 million copies sold.

This section also includes the 3-tracks single from the sub-unit BSS, Second Wind. It sold over 580,000 physical copies.

Additionally, Seventeen participated in a special anniversary edition of Dirty Dancing, a remix originally by New Kids on the Block. This limited-edition single was sold exclusively through the North American group’s website, making it a rare collector's item for fans.

Digital songs

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2015-2017 singles lead the way among the top selling downloads from Seventeen. They benefit from the healthy South Korean sales, which were replaced by streams from 2018 onwards.

Among their biggest download sellers are Pretty U, Very Nice, and Don't Wanna Cry, each surpassing 500,000 sales. On a slightly smaller scale, Adore U, Mansae, Boom Boom, Clap, and Thanks each achieved between 230,000 and 320,000 sales.

From 2018 onward, most of Seventeen’s singles sold primarily in the US and Japan, with overall sales remaining relatively low. Darl-ing was an exception, selling 180,000 units, bolstered by its availability in China (145,000 downloads). Other top hits, including Hit, Left & Right, Home:Run, Ready to Love, Rock with You, World, Super, and God of Music, all remained below 100,000 sales.

In total, Seventeen's career downloads stand at 6.5 million.

Streaming

Audio Streams
– South Korea: Genie streams * 2.20 (consistent with Gaon streaming numbers)
– Japan: AWA streams * 100 / 4 (AWA has 4% of the Japanese streaming market)
– Arabic world: Anghami streams
– Sub-Saharan Africa: Boomplay + Audiomack streams
– Elsewhere: Spotify streams * Spotify market shares based on artists' market distribution

Video Streams
– China* : QQ video streams * 50 if the song is available for audio stream, QQ video streams * 5 elseway (scale built based on known figures for several major artists)
– Elsewhere : Youtube views increased by 10% to account for various local platforms

*since Chinese streaming platforms are mostly video streaming platforms, their streams are weighted on par with YouTube streams.

Audio Stream value – 1,500 plays equal 1 album unit
Video Stream value – 6,750 views equal 1 album unit

Equivalent Albums Sales (EAS) = ( Spotify * ArtistRatio + Genie * 2.20 + AWA * 100 / 4 + Anghami + Boomplay + Audiomack ) / 1500 + ( QQ views* 50(or 5) + YouTube * 1.1 ) / 6750

Top hits

In a tightly contested race, Super leads as Seventeen's most-streamed track. It is their top-performing song on Spotify, with 245 million streams, and consistently ranks within the top 3 across platforms like AWA, Genie, and YouTube. Altogether, it has accumulated nearly 500,000 equivalent album sales from streams.

Don't Wanna Cry follows closely, dominating China’s QQ Music. Tracks released before Semicolon perform better on this platform, as songs from that album onward were distributed as paid downloads rather than free-to-stream content.

In Asia, Very Nice stands out as one of the group's signature tracks, despite a modest start at release. It remains their only song with over 100 million streams across all platforms in Japan and holds the top spot on South Korea’s Genie.

Seventeen also has a significant presence on YouTube, with 24 songs surpassing 100 million views. Among them, Left & Right takes the crown with an impressive 510 million views.

Many of the group’s albums are effectively mini-albums, featuring just five tracks. This explains the variety of releases represented in their personal Top 40 streamed songs. Their strongest project in this regard is Face the Sun, which includes Hot at #3, Darl+ing at #6, _World at #10, and four other tracks making the list. Altogether, the album accounts for 1.8 million equivalent album sales.

Although Seventeen lacks a single track with truly massive streaming numbers, their catalog remains remarkably consistent. All 40 tracks in their Top 40 have surpassed 80,000 equivalent album sales from streams, while nearly every song with sufficient availability has crossed 25,000 units. This level of consistency highlights the strength of their fanbase.

Full catalog breakdown

If you are familiar with the artist's catalog and want to check details of each and every song, you can access to all of them right here.

Keep yourself up to date

Our website provides you a fantastic tool which fetches updated Spotify streams as you request them, use it to watch these results grow day after day!

Seventeen compilations sales

Assigning compilation sales to original studio albums

How do you understand this table? For example, if we check the Seventeen Best Album 17 Is Right Here line, these figures mean it sold 3,670,000 units worldwide. The second statistics column means all versions of all the songs included in this package add for 6,331,674 equivalent album sales from streams across all formats.

The second part (on the right of the table) shows how many equivalent streams are coming from each original album, plus the share it represents in the overall package.

Therefore, the streaming figures convey that songs from Face the Sun equate to 13% of Seventeen Best Album 17 Is Right Here's tracklist attractiveness. Meaning, it generated 486,000 of its 3,670,000 album sales and so on for the other records.

Raw compilations sales

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The recent Seventeen Best Album: 17 Is Right Here has sold a strong 3.7 million copies, becoming Seventeen's top-selling compilation album.

In Japan, they released a trio of albums - 24H, Dream, and Always Yours - which have been major hits. With Seventeen holding the all-time record for the most #1 albums among international artists in the country at 13, these three albums alone have sold a combined 2.4 million copies.

In China, the band's albums have amassed 1.8 million legal downloads, led by FML, which has sold over 500,000 units.

Lastly, their music video compilations add nearly 800,000 sales to their impressive tally.

Re-assigned compilation sales – Results & comments

Incredibly, the entire catalog of Seventeen appears to be highly valuable, fueling sales of various compilations, videos and downloads. Face the Sun is the strongest, being responsible for a million sales of side products.

Bonus: Total album (all types) sales per country

Please note country-specific numbers may miss sales of a few minor releases, although totals are complete.

Seventeen: career results (CSPC)

Albums results (CSPC)

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From an international perspective, it may look like Seventeen are just getting started. Numbers tell a different story as the K-pop icons are up to 60 million equivalent album sales.

Individually, the biggest album is Face the Sun, one of the rare non-English language album to top 10 million sales. To do so in only two years only makes the achievement even more outstanding.

FML, well past 8 million, and Seventeenth Heaven, closing in 7 million, are true blockbusters too. Spill the Feels is over 4 million after a couple of months, closing on Attacca's release to date units.

The density of their sales shines after these top sellers. Love & Letter, Teen Age, An Ode, Heng:garæ and Your Choice are around 3 million apiece. In fact, each of their last 15 albums are over 1.3 million sales. Early releases 17 Carat and Boys Be are slowly but surely coming for the million sales total as well.

Singles results (CSPC)

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Want to compare the act's songs with other top hits?

Discography results (ASR)

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Records & achievements

• At 59,700,000 EAS, Seventeen are the 2nd most successful K-pop act of all-time.
• At 9,868,000 EAS, Face the Sun is among the 10 most successful K-pop albums of all-time.
• At 9,868,000 EAS, Face the Sun is the 5th most successful album from 2022.
• At 8,176,000 EAS, FML is the 3rd most successful album from 2023.
• FML ranked at #1 on IFPI's Global Top 10 Album Chart 2023.
• At 13, Seventeen has the most #1 albums ever in Japan among foreign artists.

Dynamic Spotify key performance indicators

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As usual, feel free to comment and / or ask a question!

Sources: IFPI, Spotify, YouTube, Discogs.

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