Since the beginning of 2026, a shift in the consumption of K-pop music has slowly been taking place in South Korea. While physical album sales are reaching historic highs, streaming figures are consistently falling.

Data from Circle Chart, South Korea’s official music industry standard record chart, has reported that the combined streaming figures of the Top 400 digital tracks have dropped by 4.3% compared to figures recorded in the same threshold in 2025. While percentages for each individual month varies, they do present a consistent decline; in January there was a 5.2% decrease in streaming and in May there was a 2.3% decrease.

Circle Chart takes into account a variety of platforms, both domestic and international. However, this data is also part of a wider, continuous pattern that sees international platforms finding breakthroughs in the South Korean music market and affecting figures. A KOCCA report from the end of 2025 claimed that domestic music streaming platform usage had fallen for the sixth straight year since 2019. It already looks like 2026 will be the seventh, and likely the greatest decline yet.

WiseApp and Retail data suggested that MelOn, the top domestic platform since its launch in 2004, now sits third in the rankings behind YouTube Music and Spotify. YouTube Music surpassed MelOn in December 2023 and remains in the number one spot. In June 2026, they led with 9.49 million monthly active users, followed by Spotify’s 6.22 million and MelOn’s 5.93 million. For a platform that has consistently seen that number reach 7 million, this year’s fall is especially steep.

The takeover of international platforms can be held partly responsible for a decline in streaming figures. In the past, domestic platforms like MelOn have encouraged large-scale streaming drives to contribute to the results on music shows, while a move away towards YouTube Music and Spotify does not explicitly encourage the same action. Many music shows still do not factor in international platforms to their digital figures, decreasing these targeted drives.

Specific categories are seeing decreases, with drama and movie OSTs accounting for 6.4% of the Circle Chart Top 400 in the first half of 2026 – a 1.6% fall from 2025. OSTs were previously a large motivator for music streaming amongst a mainstream audience, separately from K-pop fandoms, with the widespread popularity of Korean film and TV. Now, they are not contributing at the same level.

Additionally, the presence of K-pop releases from previous years on streaming charts may be exacerbating the falling figures. Many of the highest-ranking songs at the moment were not released in 2026, such as HANRORO’s “Landing in Love,” WOODZ’s “Drowning” and Hwasa’s “Good Goodbye”; released in 2023, 2023 and 2025 respectively. While streams of these songs also count towards overall streaming data, they prevent newer songs from breaking through on a more sustained level. This is due to a number of reasons, as opposed to being an indication of the quality and popularity of the music itself – social media trends cause older songs to re-emerge, as do TV and radio shows featuring older songs, as does the nostalgic value and familiarity of enduring legacy tracks – but does affect interest in new music and its mainstream discovery. While they may debut in high positions, they often fall quickly, replaced by the consistent chart-sitters.

And, notably, the new songs that do stick around are increasingly forming another pattern: remakes. RESCENE’s “Pretty Girl,” a reimagining of KARA’s 2008 original, has shot to number one on the Circle Chart and other groups such as AtHeart and UNIS are following suit. While this doesn’t necessarily reduce overall streaming figures – again, these streams still count, and the rookies behind them are experiencing a rise in popularity – it is telling of a shift in interest. Companies and artists are shifting their strategies, leaning in part on familiarity, and this may be causing listeners to have less of an awareness of completely new sounds and artists that have the potential to garner high stream numbers. They reach instead to remakes and their originals as the result of growing conversation.

Contrasting this downturn is an upturn in physical albums, which are seeing dramatic surges on a level never seen before. 53 million total physical units were sold across the Circle Chart’s Top 400 albums in the first half of 2026. As expected, leading the figures is BTS’ ARIRANG with over 4.2 million copies. Other top releases include CORTIS’ GREENGREEN with over three million copies and albums from BLACKPINK, TOMORROW X TOGETHER and ENHYPEN. Fourteen artists surpassed the one million mark – accounting for 22.6 million units of the 53 million collectively.

Physical sales have always been a priority for companies from a revenue standpoint. K-pop is driven by unique album designs and collectables, from the album sets themselves to individual photocards and other inclusions, and each aspect encourages fans to make purchases. Achievements in album sales figures are celebrated domestically and internationally, landing many K-pop artists on the global IFPI end-of-year rankings. With digital purchases and streaming in decline, they have become even more of a focus to maximise the impact of a new release; the two opposing trends drive each other.

It is also possible that the increase in physical album sales is the result of a growing anti-digital, pro-print trend in media overall. As everything becomes increasingly digital and with the prominence of AI, a niche has risen online of people putting down their devices and instead collecting physical media to better their mindsets and for a sense of nostalgia towards a pre-digital era.

Ultimately, both shifts will have an effect on the market, whether that is seen now or in the future. Relying on physical sales leaves the industry vulnerable; major comebacks drive the largest figures and often coincide with each other, creating periods of sharp highs and sudden lows. In May, album sales dropped by 18.8% compared to in April. At some stage, fans will reach a limit as to how many albums they are willing to buy within a certain period on a cost basis.

Not only that, but it exacerbates an already significant divide. So long as the industry is led by these major comebacks – with such a high percent of album units sold so far this year coming from a small number of artists – lesser known artists fall behind. While many have strong digital streaming numbers, especially if they have had an instance of virality, fans struggle to compete when it comes to physical album sales. The Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has made an attempt to narrow the gap by lessening limits in funding for smaller artists and companies with their ‘Support for Global Leap’ scheme, but the scheme is only intended for international plans and so does not solve these issues; the musical diversity of the industry remains threatened.

If streaming figures continue to fall, changes must be made to sustain the industry. That may look like changes to music show criterias, schemes to boost domestic platforms, or entirely new strategies to drive casual interest in K-pop rather than maintaining the increasing reliance on physical album sales – a challenge that many companies will face in the coming years.