Group BTS swept to No. 1 on the album charts in the United Kingdom and the United States with its fifth studio album, "Arirang" (ARIRANG).
Billboard said on the 30th in a chart preview article that "Arirang" took No. 1 on the main albums chart, the Billboard 200, beating Luke Combs' "The Way I Am" and Morgan Wallen's "I'm The Problem."
The Billboard 200 ranks albums by album units, a sum that includes physical and digital album sales, streaming equivalent albums (SEA), which convert streams into album sales, and track equivalent albums (TEA), which convert digital track downloads into album sales.
Arirang logged 641,000 album units during the latest chart tracking period. It is the largest weekly total for a group since the Billboard 200 began counting in album units in Dec. 2014.
Album sales were 532,000, giving BTS its seventh No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart. SEA was 95,000, the highest streaming total among BTS' albums to date, with the remainder tallied as TEA.
Billboard noted, "BTS has the biggest album-unit week since Taylor Swift's 'The Life of a Showgirl,' which debuted with about 4 million album units last year."
Of the 532,000 in album sales, 516,000 were physical copies. Among them, LPs accounted for 208,000. Billboard said this is the largest LP sales week for a group since electronic tracking began in 1991. It is the sixth-largest weekly LP sales total, following Taylor Swift, who holds Nos. 1–5.
With Arirang, BTS notched its seventh No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
BTS first topped the Billboard 200 in 2018 with "Love Yourself 轉 Tear," the first time in K-pop history. It then sent six albums to No. 1: "Love Yourself 結 Answer" (2018), "Map of the Soul: Persona" (2019), "Map of the Soul: 7" (2020), "Be" (2020), and "Proof" (2022).
The fifth album Arirang reached the top of the U.K. Official Albums Chart Top 100 on the 28th. It then also took No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200.
With "Swim" (SWIM), the title track of the fifth album, BTS is also expected to enter the Billboard Hot 100, the U.S. main singles chart, as early as the morning of the 31st when rankings are announced.