BTS Breaks Records with 'ARIRANG' Debut, Topping Billboard 200
BTS achieves their seventh No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 'ARIRANG,' marking record-breaking sales and streaming figures. Luke Combs follows closely with 'The Way I Am' at No. 2.
BTS' ARIRANG has made a monumental debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated April 4), securing the reunited pop group its seventh leader. This album launched with an impressive 641,000 equivalent album units earned – the largest week for an album by a group since the chart began measuring by units in December 2014. Of that total, 532,000 were pure album sales, marking the biggest sales week for an album by a group in over a decade.
ARIRANG joins BTS' previous No. 1 albums Proof (2022), BE (2020), MAP OF THE SOUL : 7 (2020), MAP OF THE SOUL : PERSONA (2019), Love Yourself ‘Answer’ (2018), and Love Yourself ‘Tear’ (2018).
BTS Album Cover
Also making waves in the top 10 of the latest Billboard 200 chart, Luke Combs secures his seventh top 10 set with The Way I Am debuting at No. 2.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 2,500 ad-supported or 1,000 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new April 4, 2026-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on March 31. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of ARIRANG’s 641,000 equivalent album units earned, 532,000 are from pure album sales (the group’s biggest sales week ever, also debuting at No. 1 on Top Album Sales), 95,000 are SEA units (equaling 99.10 million on-demand official streams, BTS’ biggest streaming week ever for an album, also debuting at No. 1 on Top Streaming Albums), and the remainder are TEA units.
BTS now claims the biggest week for an album by units earned since Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl debuted at No. 1 with a historic 4.002 million units on the Oct. 18, 2025-dated chart. BTS also holds the record for the biggest week for any album by a group since the Billboard 200 began ranking by equivalent album units in December 2014.
In terms of pure album sales, BTS achieved the largest sales week since Showgirl, which launched with 3.48 million copies sold. The last group to surpass this was One Direction, with Midnight Memories selling 547,000 copies in its debut week (Dec. 14, 2013-dated chart).
ARIRANG’s impressive first-week sales were largely driven by physical sales (516,000), supported by its availability across 17 vinyl variants and nine CD editions, each featuring the same tracklist and collectible items like photocards, stickers, and posters. Vinyl sales accounted for 208,000 units – BTS’ best vinyl sales week and the largest for a group in the modern era (since Luminate began electronically tracking sales in 1991). It also marks the sixth-largest vinyl sales week for an album in the modern era, with Taylor Swift holding the top five spots. Showgirl holds the record for the biggest week for a vinyl set in the modern era, with 1.334 million units.
The release date for ARIRANG, March 20, was announced on Jan. 1, while the title was revealed on Jan. 16. The album was accompanied by the global live Netflix special BTS THE COMEBACK LIVE | ARIRANG on March 21. The lead single, “SWIM,” was released simultaneously with the album, and its music video premiered the same day. BTS also performed on NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on March 25 and 26.
Next month, the BTS WORLD TOUR ‘ARIRANG’ will launch on April 9 in Goyang, South Korea, and arrive in the United States on April 25 in Tampa, Fla. The trek will continue through the U.S. and Mexico through May 28, before heading overseas. The tour returns to the U.S. on Aug. 1 and is set to wrap its U.S./Canada dates Sept. 6 in Inglewood, Calif.
Luke Combs achieves his seventh top 10 album on the Billboard 200, with The Way I Am debuting at No. 2 with 101,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, SEA units comprise 76,000 (equaling 77.66 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs; it debuts at No. 2 on Top Streaming Albums), album sales comprise 23,000 (it debuts at No. 2 on Top Album Sales) and TEA units comprise the rest.
The album was preceded by seven charted hits on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, three of which reached the top 10: “Back in the Saddle,” “Sleepless in a Hotel” and “Be by You.” All three have also reached the top 10 on the Country Airplay chart, with “Back in the Saddle” topping the list for two weeks in November.
The Way I Am adds to Combs’ top 10 total on the Billboard 200, following Fathers & Sons (No. 6 peak in 2024), Gettin’ Old (No. 4, 2023), Growin’ Up (No. 2, 2022), What You See Is What You Get (No. 1, 2019), The Prequel (No. 4, 2019) and This One’s for You (No. 4, 2018).
ARIRANG and The Way I Am are the only debuts in the top 10 on the latest Billboard 200. Of the eight remaining titles in the top 10, just one is not a former No. 1 (Olivia Dean’s The Art of Loving at No. 6).
Morgan Wallen’s I’m the Problem falls 2-3 (76,000 equivalent album units earned, up 4%), Harry Styles’ Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally. slips 1-4 in its third week (64,000, down 35%) and Don Toliver’s Octane rounds out the top five, rising 6-5 (55,000, down 2%).
Dean’s The Art of Loving climbs 7-6 (54,000 equivalent album units, down 2%), Bad Bunny’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS falls 5-7 (53,000, down 7%), Bruno Mars’ The Romantic is a non-mover at No. 8 (45,000, down 16%), Wallen’s One Thing at a Time rises 12-9 (38,000, up 7%) and the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack is steady at No. 10 (36,000, down 4%).
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
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