South Korea‘s K-pop physical album sales are at the brink of reaching the 80 million milestone for 2022, thanks to the robust performance of boy band BTS and popular girl groups, a major music chart revealed Saturday.

The annual physical sales of the top 400 K-pop albums had stood at 74.2 million as of Dec. 10, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier, according to the country’s benchmark Circle Chart.

K-pop superband BTS sold 6.07 million physical copies during the cited period, buoying the overall non-EP sales.

A jump in girl groups‘ album sales also stood out this year.

Female singers logged 32.6 percent of all physical sales for K-pop in 2022, up 16.5 percentage points from a year earlier, according to Circle Chart.

The portion of male singers, however, decreased by 17.3 percentage points to 66.2 percent. (Yonhap)