Streaming Masters – IU
South Korean superstar IU just debuted straight at #1 with her new song Blueming on the Gaon charts this week destroying all competition as well as taking up half of the top 10 digital tracks there with songs from her new album Love Poem.
No one who follows the charts there are surprised really, it’s just what she does with everything she releases in her homeland. And she’s been doing it for a decade now!
But is this really enough for IU to go up against her fellow Koreans that are way more popular than her internationally?
In order to account for her real popularity in each relevant country, the below sources have been used along with the mentioned ratios that reflect the market share of each area.
Audio Streams
– South Korea : Genie streams * 3.05 (consistent with Gaon streaming numbers)
– Japan : AWA streams * 100/5.5 (AWA has 5.5% of the Japanese streaming market)
– Elsewhere : Spotify streams * (370 – 8.5 – 9.5 – 33 – 9) / 207 (370 million global subscribers minus 8.5 million from South Korea minus 9.5 million from Japan minus 33 million from China divided by the number of Spotify only users minus 9 million more Asian users) + Genie streams * 0.75 (uses Genie rather than Spotify to extrapolate markets like Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam)*
*The multiplier for Genie streams have been set to 0.75 instead of the usual 3.05 to not inflate her Asian numbers since her popularity is much larger in South Korea in comparison unlike most western acts and more global K-pop artists like BTS and Blackpink.
Video Streams – China* : Xiami streams * 125/6.5 (Xiami has just over 5% of the Chinese streaming market)
– Elsewhere : Youtube views
*since 96.4% of Chinese streaming platforms are free users, that paid-for users pay less than $2 a month and that they are also used as video streaming platforms, their streams are weighted in par with YouTube streams.
Audio Stream value – 1500 plays equal 1 album unit
Video Stream value – 11,750 views equal 1 album unit
Equivalent Albums Sales (EAS) = ( Spotify * 310/207 + Genie * 3.05 + Genie * 0.75 + AWA * 100/5.5 ) / 1500 + ( Xiami * 125/6.5 + YouTube ) / 11750
IU streaming review – the results
Total: 3,585,934 EAS
IU most streamed tracks (EAS)
1. Through the Night [Palette] – 293,000
2. Palette [Palette] – 243,000
3. Bbibbi [Orphan] – 205,000
4. Can’t Love You Anymore? [Palette] – 146,000
5. Friday [Modern Times] – 141,000
6. Twenty-Three [Chat-Shire] – 108,000
7. Not Spring, Love or Cherry Blossoms [Orphan] – 105,000
8. Autumn Morning [A Flower Bookmark 2] – 103,000
9. Love Story [Orphan] – 99,000
10. The Meaning Of You [A Flower Bookmark] – 97,000
11. SoulMate [Orphan] – 90,000
12. Dlwlrma [Palette] – 87,000
13. Heart [Orphan] – 84,000
14. Ending Scene [Palette] – 80,000
15. Good Day [Real] – 70,000
16. Dear Name [Palette] – 67,000
17. Sleepless Rainy Night [A Flower Bookmark 2] – 62,000
18. My Old Story [A Flower Bookmark] – 59,000
19. Road [Orphan] – 58,000
20. Love Poem [Love Poem] – 52,000
Sources: Spotify, YouTube, AWA (app), Xiami, Genie.
I hope to see her updated in the coming months. She’s grown quite a bit on Spotify.
Thanks she was so famous female musician. She starts her business as a solo idol and she changes her music concept as a songwriter and try to make different genre. Her voice is so cool.
Definitely, her career is quite something, her download sales are crazy and in terms of streams she’s either the most or at least second most streamed artist ever in South Korea, if you look away from K-pop groups and their offshoots she’s by far the top album seller in South Korea too!
I have 3 albums of her. my favorite one is Palette.
“if you look away from K-pop groups and their offshoots she’s by far the top album seller in South Korea too!”
Do you mean in the 2010s? There were plenty of artists reaching 5-15m albums sales in the late 1980s-1990s such as Jo Sung-mo, Jo Kwan-woo, Kim Jong-hwan, Kim Gunmo, Lee Moon-sae, and Shin Seung-hun.
Yeah, I mean in the past few 10 years, in the digital era there.