Korean Physical Album Sales & Charts

Physical Album sales are important for both Music Show wins & Year-End awards scoring criteria. The first-week sales (including pre-orders) are especially vital for Music Show wins. So make sure to order from websites/stores/people whose sales are counted in the Hanteo & Gaon charts for physical album sales.
Sites that count towards Korean charts:

Don’t forget to pre-order Seungyoon’s album from this Team YOONited x KTown4U fan support event!

What are the differences between Hanteo vs Gaon?
Hanteo counts the number of albums SOLD from stores they’re partnered with. Hanteo doesn’t reflect the total sales but it covers about 85% of music stores which is already a good indicator of how an artist’s album is doing. Reports from Hanteo-certified stores are automatically reflected on their real-time chart. Hanteo chart usually shows the Top 5 best selling albums every hour on their site (http://www.hanteochart.com/) while revealing the number of sales of only one of the Top 5. In order for you to gain access to the full list and information, you have to register/login to the website.

Gaon, on the other hand, counts the number of albums SHIPPED from distributors and record labels to retailers. This is a different way than Hanteo at indicating an artist’s album performance because it captures the demand through shipments rather than the actual sales. The greater the demand of the album, the more shipments are made by the distributor or the label company and vice versa. This also means that Gaon considers not only the albums sold but also stocks or those just sitting on the stores’ shelves and therefore will absolutely have greater numbers than Hanteo. Gaon updates its album chart (as well as digital, streaming, download and more) every Thursdays on their site (http://gaonchart.co.kr/)

So which chart is more important?
We say both. Hanteo chart is mainly used in weekly music shows (with the exception of SBS Inkigayo which uses Gaon chart) as its updated real time while Gaon is mainly used at year-end award ceremonies.

Hanteo and Gaon are also relative to each other in a sense that if KANG SEUNGYOON sells a lot (= good Hanteo numbers), then, distributors are willing to produce & ship more albums (= good Gaon numbers). In addition, all numbers counting on Hanteo counts to Gaon as well so we recommend fans to efficiently buy from Hanteo certified stores especially on the 1st and 2nd weeks from release to help KANG SEUNGYOON in getting those trophies and awards.