Evan sold 461,488 albums in a day
Evan's first solo EP sold 461,488 copies on the day of its release on Monday and went to No. 1 on Hanteo's daily album chart, six months after he left Enhypen.
Enhypen's eighth EP, released three weeks earlier, sold 1,774,829 copies on its first day on the same chart. Evan's figure is 26 per cent of it. Both numbers come from Hanteo, which counts physical copies scanned at participating retailers rather than units shipped to them.
Six months after leaving ENHYPEN, the first clean measurement of how much of a K-pop audience belongs to one member.
The industry almost never gets a clean read on how much of a group's audience attaches to the group and how much attaches to a person, because the two are never sold separately under controlled conditions. Here they were.
A quarter is the answer, at least on the first day and at least for this member.
Belift Lab announced on 10 March that Heeseung, the group's main vocalist since its 2020 debut, would leave to work as a solo artist while remaining under contract to the label. Enhypen continued as six.
The label told Billboard the following day that letting him focus fully on a solo career, rather than pursue solo work from inside the group, would be the most fulfilling approach for both parties.
Fans did not accept the framing quietly. Some directed complaints at the National Pension Service, which holds a stake in HYBE, Belift Lab's parent, according to Korea JoongAng Daily.
Heeseung took the name Evan in April and released a first digital single, Ride or Die, in June. Death of Me, out on Monday, is the first physical release, eight tracks, with his lyrics on all of them and his compositions on seven.
The record has sold 502,677 copies as of Wednesday, according to Hanteo. Almost all of that was the first day: sales over the following two days added about 41,000 copies.
That shape is familiar. Physical K-pop albums are bought by a fandom in a concentrated burst around release and barely move afterwards, which is why a day-one figure and a first-week figure tend to be close and why neither describes listening.
The digital picture is separate and smaller. The title track went to No. 1 on Bugs' real-time chart on Monday evening and entered Melon's Hot 100 at No. 5. Abroad, the EP topped iTunes albums charts in 11 countries including Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand and Turkey, charted in 34, and reached No. 4 on Oricon's daily album ranking in Japan on Tuesday.
Asked at Monday's showcase about Enhypen going to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 two weeks earlier, Evan said he was proud of them.
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Evan's first solo EP sold 461,488 copies on day one. His old group sold 1,774,829 three weeks earlier on the same chart. That ratio is the story.