It takes a brave person to get involved in arguments between the world’s keenest superfans over whether one artist is better or bigger than another. So doff your caps but retreat a safe distance from music-database Viberate, which has sent out some figures claiming that Blackpink are ‘the biggest K-Pop group’ ahead of BTS.

Blackpink recently became the first K-Pop group to join the ‘three commas club’ (1bn views for a video) on YouTube, joining solo-artist Psy. But how to judge whether Blackpink or BTS are bigger, given the many different metrics – CD sales, audio streams, video views, tickets and merch sold, social followings etc?

Viberate has been pulling together a range of digital stats to figure out who’s biggest. Drilling down on the numbers around digital popularity on Twitter, Instagram, Spotify, SoundCloud and YouTube, it found that Blackpink topped both the Mainstream Pop and the Asian Pop rankings. It added that Blackpink are by some distance dominant on YouTube and BTS are only in the lead in terms of Twitter followers and SoundCloud plays (which was hardly difficult given Blackpink have no SoundCloud account).

In Viberate’s overall popularity rankings, Blackpink are 22nd and BTS 27th. That said, a comparison based on metrics from western streaming services and social networks doesn’t tell the whole story: Spotify, for example, isn’t even available in South Korea yet.

EarPods and phone

Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences

Tools: Kaiber

In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…

Read all Tools >>

Music Ally's Head of Insight

Join the Conversation

20 Comments

  1. I love BlackPink talented girls for sure but excuse me are you try make fun of us ?! BTS topping everything when it comes to numbers in every website/platform .
    correct me if I am wrong , you can check it on kworb
    Youtube : BTS topping with almost 11 Billions in total offi mvs
    Blackpink around 7 billions !
    Spotfiy : BTS total streams with the most streamed song by KPOP ACT more than 7.2 BILLION total streams with around 17 million for monthly listeners and have surpassed The Chainsmokers and now they are the 7th most followed group/duo on the platform till the moment
    Blackpink : around 9 million Monthly Listeners with not even 2 billion total sreams !!
    Tiktok : BTS have claimed a new record for the fastest time to reach one million followers on TikTok and this by guinness world records with a 5.6 million followers this acc just two months old !!
    Blackpink: 6 millions followers in about second year on tiktok !

    Vapp” korean app for lives for every kpop group : BTS most following artist on it with 16 million
    Blackpink with around 7 million !!
    Instagram : BTS not as twitter acc with their company management 21.1 million followers
    Blackpink : 21.4 million along with the members acc
    let’s not to mention that BTS topped 200 billboard for albums 3 times in just less than year
    the most korean artist selling in the last years with 16 million copies
    received platinum and gold certification from the RIAA
    the only and first korean group to preform and winning in AMAS and Billboard music awards
    the highest numbers of itunes charting was by RM “the leader of BTS” mixtape 92 country !!
    so Blackpink reached 1 Billion Congrats but don’t compare to BTS cause they are far away
    * Latin artist saying hello with their billions views and no one said that they are big than Ed or Bruno 🙂

  2. looool this is so ridiculous its actually funny XD bts sold wayyy more albums, bts had the biggest ever tour for a kpop act, bts always gets more votes, etc. Bp only has YouTube views but dont forget that they have like 1/10 of the amount of videos BTS has. their fans only have to stream 5 videos while bts fans have to stream 30 to 50 lol comparing bts and bp’s popularity is like comparing the Beatles and Nickleback lol

  3. This is completely dumb. Yes, BlackPink has gotten many views, that’s because they have a streaming party for that mv. Plus their other mv’s don’t have as many views as that one MV obviously. BTS is the only other band other than the Beatles to get 3 number 1 albums in less than a year. They have sold out many concerts in minutes no seconds at times, BlackPink can’t even sell out concerts sometimes but when they do it takes a while for them to sell out. I love BlackPink but this article is nonsense.

  4. But blackpink doesn’t have as many physical sales. BTS have sold over 40 million physical albums too. They release multiple albums a year with either more than 9 or 26 songs. Not many people have heard of blackpink but they have heard of BTS before. Just because blackpink got more views, doesn’t mean they are that popular.

  5. Are they trying to start a fan war? Like how childish can they be, me being a multi-fandon is trying to hold my anger in. Like imagine being in a fan war if you were an ARMY and a BLINK? How silly can their communtiy be! I love blackpink but the fanbase is way to toxic for me. And what else? I wouldn’t have found out about BP if I didn’t find out about BTS first, so the blinks wouldn’t have that one extra fan, or maybe a lot more, listening to their music if it wasn’t for many groups that we found them through. But the fanbase is annoyingly toxic, I couldn’t be accepted at first by most when I first became a blink? How silly is that, and then the amount of times many have tried to start fan wars. Can we all settle down and just accept every kpop group is actually amazing? With so much talent, and make our kpop community calm and happy, because most of us are already hated by people obsessed with making fun of our kpop idols, so how about lets fight back at them for being racist etc, instead of eachother c:

  6. These people or crazy… They are going by blackpink views… I have nothing against blackpink but BTS sales is out of this world…. They’re not even close to what BTS sales… BTS 170 + million tour sales around the world and blackpink 26.4 million sales for their tour around the world.. I haven’t even added BTS album sales in yet…

  7. R u kidding me. BTS are ahead of them in wayyyyy too many things like album sales and stadium sold outs and breaking records every day. Just because they got 1b views on youtube doesn’t mean they r more popular and everyone knows how they got those views by cheating. They always upload their mv under vlogs or stuff so when someone clicks their mv even by accident the view counts but in bts’ case, they put it under music like every other artist so if someone clicks on it the view is counted if it is heard for about 1min. Cheaters always cheating

  8. Hey music lover, I love what you said * Latin artist saying hello with their billions views and no one said that they are big than Ed or Bruno

    This is so true, Spanish and Portuguese songs/mv in ytube has reached billion views, but its not enough to tell that they are bigger than BTS

  9. Chingchong Ambot thanks for your LOVE dear! 🙂 MR.Dredge must see the reaction last night about not giving BTS a nomination at the Grammy this year ..not just as fans but also the western news and musicians cause BTS are huge and best selling album for this year till the date !!
    So if he sees BTS AND BP marvelous and interesting to him, so he don’t pick a side still outside who is bigger than who ..

  10. Blackpink has more views on 1 music video. But don’t forget BTS has wayyyy more views if you add all the mv views. BTS wins on album sales ticket sales western popularity and awards wise and they win on tiktok followers gained rates and they win on twitter. Blackpink is extremely talented and they have some amazing music but comparing them to BTS is like comparing J Balvin to Justin Bieber. J Balvin has a lot of views but come on we all know Justin is better. And Blackpink gets views whenever someone just clicks then video but BTS only get a view when you steam for at least a minute. If BTS did the same we all know BTS would be ahead on views. Theres not an argument here just few deluded fans.

  11. BlackPink popularity is all virtual. All what they have accomplished is in the internet only. Think about it? What have they really done? A billion views, million of subscriptions, records in spotify for one day downloads. But how much money those things make for the group and their company? Not much. In the real world BlackPink is a group that in three years have released only 13 songs. Do you realize that the group don’t have enough songs of their own to fill a 2 and a half hour concert? Their company claimed that they sold out all concerts of the American tour, then they have to go through the indignity of retracting the statement and acknowledging that most of the concert were not sold out as reported by the media. They couldn’t even sell out their fan meeting in a very small venue of 2000-3000 sits. Spare me the excuse that it was to punish their company, no fandom will allow the group they love to be humiliated like that just to punish their CEO. Have you seen their sales figures, there are three other groups with more sales than them, there are two other groups, one a new group, who has almost the same number of sales. There is one group that have sold twice the number of albums than BP, before they released the two latest albums. Did you know that BP is not even in the first 25 groups ranking of show wins? They have barely won any awards. So where are their accomplishments other than number of views and subscriptions? They won the E! people choice awards, but it has been reported that BTS had almost 20 million more votes. How do you explain that? Unlike the MAMA awards in which the popular vote only counts for 30%, in the People Choice the popular vote counts 100%. And why their Company is busy releasing solo albums instead of releasing a group album? Because the company needs money not only to produce and promote the album but also to be able to take loses in the investment for the low sales volume that the group overtime has produced. So they are working as models now instead of as idols. It is not the girls fault, clearly, but that is the way it is.

  12. well, music lover and all other ARMYs, no offense to you guys and BTS, but Blackpink only has like, 13 songs? And they started in 2016.
    But for BTS, who started out like 2010! And they now have 97 songs. Soo, can you compare BTS to Blackpink? You can only do that by comparing the first 4 years of BTS to Blackpink. Which clearly Blackpink is more successful.

  13. This article is so foolish. By album sales, total number of songs, general popularity, stage presence, global reputation, etc. BTS far exceed Blackpink who at present only have a handful of popular songs.

  14. Literally the only reason why Blackpink MVs have so many views is because 1: YG uses bots and they use ads as a form of getting views on YT. So when they view an ad it also counts as a view. I’m not even making this up. It was confirmed and they wrote an article about it. And 2: Becasue Blackpink only release one MV a year and even in 2017 they released nothing.

  15. obviously BTS is better than BLACKPINK cause BTS is more popular because they perform in other show and other countries.but don’t compare the 2 group cause they are king and queen

  16. If blackpink are more popular then why can’t they sell out arenas and bts have sold out the biggest stadiums? Bts also have the most albums sold for a Korean group and have the most daesangs than any one ever so this is a joke

  17. lol they get views cuz they starve their fans 4 it like the ppl starves for their birthday to come before calling then better than bts compare the sales of albums , singles , charts and itunes records . Don’t make this blunder again

  18. For me bts is better.Although I am not trying to complain but black pink songs talks about only relationships and Break up while bts songs cover many topic from loving yourself to many things.Saying black pink is better is like saying itzy is better than Beyonce

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *