What Bunjang's 2025 Fan Sales Data Says About K-pop
One of the most ill-timed projects of my entire career came out on March 16, 2020: Merch Madness, a Billboard deep dive series into K-pop merchandise, arrived just as the Covid-19 pandemic erupted in the United States. It was a series of deep reporting into business and fan practices, the latter of which was often accompanied by people very self-aware about their spending in the name of fandom love.
Since 2020, fandom spending has taken off across every category. Everyone wants to market their content or products to superfans, and this has combined with the trend of reselling and thrifting becoming commonplace. I personally looked up a pair of Sailor Moon Jimmy Choo boots on a few resale sites yesterday, dreaming of an absolutely ridiculous use for my tax return while I actually put it away into a very responsible high yield savings account.
Window shopping for merchandise related to content I love, K-pop or otherwise, on second-hand sites has become a pastime of mine. I don't collect photocards, or any other sort of "boy paper", but there are a few albums that I keep my eyes peeled for.
When it comes to K-pop merch resale, there are so many options. Buying from people directly on social media is popular, or going to sites like Ebay or Mercari. But for K-pop merchandise from Korea, the ones that are often hard-to-find in international markets, there's resale market Bunjang.
Launched in 2011, and then with a Global version in 2023, Bunjang – which is currently looking for a new owner and valued at over half a billion USD – released their 2025 K-pop merch data report this week and shared it with Notes on K-pop. I immediately delved into the data, and spotted some things I thought worth highlighting.
- North America is the largest market for Bunjang Global by far
With over 50 percent of sales, the top artist in the U.S. is Stray Kids. The U.S. is the top market for Bunjang based on share of total sales volume, more than double the amount of sales of the next-largest market, Australia.
Although they didn't explain what makes a "top artist" in the deck they shared, Bunjang did break down some artists by locality for other top regions: Following Stray Kids at in the U.S. market, BTS is most popular in the United Kingdom; Plave is the most popular in Taiwan; NCT is the most popular in Canada; DAY6 reigns supreme in Singapore; Ateez are popular in Germany.
However, not a single one of these artists have more than 17% of any local market share, showing how no single act is really dominating in any market. They also didn't share Australia's top artist, which I'm following up with out of curiosity.
As an aside, Bunjang consistently just uses the term "NCT" as a whole, which includes multiple teams. I'd love to see an individual breakdown.
- Signed albums and exclusive photocards are, unsurprisingly, where the money is at
K-pop companies make their money at scale, with multiple album variants, special events, tours, etc., but the real value remains with rarity. It reminds me a lot of sneakerheads.
Last year, the top sale was for a signed, "Not For Sale", copy of Daesung's "Look at Me, Gwisun" single. The top three items sold were albums, all over $2,000 USD, but the top photocards were from Stray Kids and Aespa, selling for over $1,500 each.
Stray Kids sells the most photocards, followed by Ateez, Plave, Day6, and NCT, though the most wishlisted item was Enhypen purikura, or the term for photobooths in Japan, photocards.
- Bunjang considers the market's "true leader" by photocard sales, and gives that crown to Stray Kids
This emphasized by how the top photocard sold was a Stray Kids Streaming Event Photocard for $1,680 USD, or 2 million KRW.
If you look at most-sold items overall, that is BTS, which is also seen by them being the most viewed artists. Bunjang declares BTS "an irreplaceable blue chip in the K-POP asset market".
- All Hail Plave
If you're not familiar with PLAVE, it's really about time I haven't talked about them a lot via Notes on K-pop, but really need to. They are one of the biggest stories in K-pop at the moment because of both how big they are and how they are a virtual boy band. Bunjang's data shows that both in Korea and globally, PLAVE is the #2 act for listings and sales.
- Korea and the rest of the world are different markets
Another pretty obvious thing, but feel like it's incredibly clear looking at Bunjang's charts: the rest of the world favors boy bands with longevity, and while the big names still trend in Korea, newer acts surge faster in Korea: Boynextdoor and RIIZE have a presence in Korea, and NCT is at the top probably not just because of their size but because NCT Wish is increasingly popular among K-pop fans in Korea. When I was in Seoul last year, I met up with several industry friends who admitted to being Wishzens, saying that the bright attitudes brought them a lot of joy to watch.
Women aren't favored generally for resale value on Bunjang, but IVE is popular in Korea and IU internationally. This hones in on important market trends Girl groups tend to be more for the general public in Korea rather than prominent internationally, whereas IU is a powerhouse in Asia. I'd be very curious to see breakdown further by continental markets, as I'm personally curious about whether there is any top-10 girl group or female soloist at the top of Bunjang's sales. Aespa is clearly up there, based on that $1,500+ photocard alone, but I'd love to see the numbers.
What I'm listening to
Now that I finally finished my last end-of-2025 Best of list, I'm... listening to more music from last year! The Korean Music Awards made nominee playlists that I've been enjoying this week following the release of nomination for this year's awards.
What I'm working on
In Conversation: "The Rose: Come Back to Me" director Eugene Yi and Producer Diane Quon - I spoke with the director and EP behind the recently-release The Rose documentary. It was such an engaging conversation, I hope more people read what they had to say about the documentary process, mental health stigmas, and approaching K-pop.
I spoke with Arirang about the return of BTS.
So a cute little announcement... I'm starting a Notes on K-pop Instagram account! There's nothing on it at the moment, but I'll begin posting soon, just waiting on a logo that's currently WIP. I'll post some backlog, and begin posting content regularly. Please follow if you'd like, though my TamarWrites account will still remain active, but it's my personal account and I feel like some people maybe don't care about what delicious food I'm having.
What I'm reading
Patrick St. Michel ruminated on Le Sserafim's "Spaghetti".
Kevn Ortega-Rojas of Here’s Why wrote a piece about how content creators relaying news stories are not journalists.
"Pop music isn’t fun anymore" says Alim Kheraj for Dazed, due to rising prices. Wait until Harry Styles fans find out about photocard prices.
In the News
Ex-President Yoon sentenced to life imprisonment over martial law bid (Yonhap)
South Korean public nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for stopping martial law crisis (Hankyoreh)
Rose's 'APT.' tops IFPI's 2025 chart for global singles (Korea Joongang Daily)
The title of this newsletter was updated after publication, after it went out with a WIP title that had a typo in it.
