SM really wants you to believe NCT and SuperM are very successful

When the Gaon album chart for October was released, two results stood out, both coming from the most recent SM Entertainment boy bands. In first place, the first part of NCT's 2020 project "NCT Resonance", selling a total of 1,272,389 copies combining both of its versions (the album by itself sold 1,193,394 copies and the kit sold 78,995 copies). Another standout result were the sales of SM supergroup SuperM 2nd album, "Super One". The seven-piece group, which combines members from NCT (Taeyong, Ten, Lucas and Mark), Exo (Baekhyun and Kai) and Shinee (Taemin) ended up selling 502,445 copies. However, digging deeper onto the numbers, they just don't match in any imaginable way possible. So, let's break it down.

Starting with the most egregious one. So, according to Gaon, which tracks all shipments from Korean stores, SuperM sold a little over 500 thousand copies. However, looking at data, SM must have done massive amounts of overshipping to achieve those numbers. First, let's take a look at Hanteo, the other Korean album sales tracker. Hanteo differs from Gaon in the sense that they only report albums from certified stores that end up being sold, so their numbers will be smaller than Gaon, but usually the gaps between the two aren't that eye-popping. On the last day of October, SuperM had sold 38,071 copies of "Super One" on Hanteo certified stories. Compare to the numbers they registered on Gaon, that's a gap of 466 thousand units. So, where did those units go?

Fans usually point to the fact that SuperM is a group marketed not towards Korea but instead focusing on the United States, as the group has held numerous performances targeting that country's audience and debuted 1st on the Billboard 200 album charts with their debut EP, albeit not without controversy over the excessive use of bundles. However, their latest release saw a decrease in sales in the United States compared to their debut. SuperM's first album sold 164 thousand copies on its first week of tracking and a total of 228 thousand. For comparison, "Super One" only debuted with 101 thousand album sales in the United States, adding only 10 thousand extra units since. Even if every single one of those albums went untracked at Hanteo, that still leaves a whopping 355 thousand albums that are nowhere to be found. United World Chart, which tracks worldwide album sales, also only had SuperM charting on the album's first week, reporting sales of 120,000 copies.

SuperM for the "Tiger Inside" music video

On to NCT, similar discrepancies can be found. Last March, one of the group's subunits, NCT 127, released its second album, "Neo Zone". According to Gaon, the album sold a very round 748,000 units between its main version and kit version. That is despite the fact that no previous NCT 127 album had not even crossed the 300 thousand unit mark. Sure, massive sales growth by idol groups isn't that uncommon. However, there are so many question marks about these numbers and so much data from both NCT and other SM groups that makes these sales claims look very questionable. First, let's take a look at another SM boyband, none other than NCT's famous predecessors Exo. Its latest album, "Obsession", had sold just slightly over 601 thousand copies at Hanteo. For Gaon, the group had an increase of around 166 thousand, ended up selling 766,294 albums at the end of 2019. So in the end at the first batch, Exo sold around 18 thousand more albums than NCT 127. But what was the gap in Hanteo? One hundred and eighty-five thousand copies. Yes, that's right, 10 times the difference shown on Gaon between these two groups. And if every unit sold in the US by the end of march was ignored on Hanteo, which is hard to believe, given many fans outside Korea actually prefer to seek for Hanteo certified stores so their sales can count in Korea and in the case of fans from the United States, preferably both stores that are Hanteo certified but also show up in the Billboard 200, it still only makes up half the gap between Exo and NCT. United World Chart, by the last time "Neo Zone" charted there, had the album only at 561,000 copies sold. NCT's forgotten unit (Dream) also adds more suspicion as its april release had outsold 127 "New Zone" by the end of may in Hanteo, but Gaon instead showed a gap of 200 thousand units in favor of 127. Historically speaking, NCT Dream had always been the best-selling of the group, as it was the only one who managed to build a resemblance of a stable fan base. But with SM fully committing to the "Western Validation Trap", Dream has silently being pushed to the back to prioritize 127, which although is named for the meridian that crosses Seoul. I guess NCT 74 (New York City's longitude) would be more appropriate.

In the end, though, SM, using the power of an unhinged fandom to silence suspicions, won the narrative, as a couple months later NCT's 127 repackage album sold well enough to give the sub unit the coveted title of "million seller". They now joined an exclusive club along the likes of early day pioneers such as Seo Taiji and the Boys, g.o.d, H.O.T and Sechskies plus the most successful boy bands of the past few years in Exo, Wanna One and BTS. So how dare would someone question their success when past SM stallwarts such as TVXQ, Super Junior, Girls' Generation and Shinee never sold over 1 million copies at any of their Korean albums (although Girls' Generation did have a japanese album that crossed that threshold)? The numbers prove it!

All 23 (!!!) NCT members on teaser picture for the group's 2020 project, "Resonance". If you managed to recognize every single one of them, major props to you (and a cookie).

But SM wasn't done yet. They had an ambitious upcoming project in the works. In comes NCT 2020. For the month of October, there would essentially exist no SM Entertainment, the company had turned full-blown into NCT Entertainment. In 2018 SM had already done a similar project to this one, unifying all NCT units into one album, but the scale of NCT 2020 dwarfs what they did in 2018. It was the passing of the torch, the moment SM fully decided to make Neo Culture its one and only brand, no distractions like Exo, Red Velvet of any of their past legacy acts. Two new members were brought into the fold, increasing the count to 23, NCT now officially has the size of a FIFA World Cup roster. For the entire month, the company spent ink on press releases to point out how amazing the group's preorders had been. First they claimed 1.12 million preorders. That wasn't enough, days before the release of the Gaon monthly charts, SM doubled down, now their new number was 1.4 million. Outselling Exo's biggest album was within reach. NCT will go down as SM's biggest group in history! And there is a second part just on the way.

Gaon then released their October numbers. As said all the way back in the first paragraph, NCT ended up topping the album charts, with 1.27 million copies. Two other groups managed to sell over 1 million, making october a prolific month on that department: Blackpink (1.07 million) and Seventeen (1.06 million). They also happened to raise even more dark clouds over NCT sales. First, Seventeen, who had minimal increase from its Hanteo numbers of 958 thousand sales, which historically has been the pattern for the group, despite massive sales numbers, close to 90% of it appear on Hanteo. However, wouldn't Blackpink be on the same overshipping theory, considering Hanteo only reported 68% of their sales, which is just a few points better than NCT 63%? This is where other sources come to play. United World Chart, which tracks not only Hanteo but international sales that would mostly show up on Gaon had, at the last week of October, Blackpink at 1.117 million (actually higher than their Gaon numbers), Seventeen at 1.033 million (meaning they probably had just around 30 thousand unsold units) and NCT at... 867 thousand, which is still only 68% of their gaon numbers. On Billboard, NCT also only scored 40 thousand copies, and as I said before, even if you imply not a single one of them came from a Hanteo certified store, you still only find 71% of their sales. Blackpink, in comparison, sold 110 thousand there. So where did all those albums go? It's very suspicious.

But SM made their choice, they'll keep uttering through their PR machine that NCT are rising at a blistering pace, that SuperM is going to compete toe to toe against BTS in the United States, that sales are better than ever. They might be, when you decide to sell it to yourself just to look better. Meanwhile, public recognition and prestige of SM idols has never been as low as it's been today, as the company deals with scandals from their once popular idols. The latest Gallup result asking the most popular idols in Korea may have shown 5 idols from SM, more than their Big 3 counterparts JYP (4) and YG (2) but with a caveat: none of them debuted later than 2014, meaning they have struggled to renew their roster. Not a single NCT member shows up (and it's unlikely they will anytime soon). The last image the public has of a popular SM idol is someone going on a downward spiral like Irene and Chanyeol did recently. Aespa, their new girl group and best chance of having any big idol on a near future it's struggling because of that. All SM has to offer to the public are scandals and a group they don't care about because its concept is so confusing, with so much shuffling going on, so many units, members, it's for sure its main fatal flaw. But there is no SM Entertainment anymore, they are now Neo Culture Entertainment, and as NCT goes so does SM. Right now, it's the anchor sending them into the abyss.