V Smashes His Bandmate Jimin’s Sales Record

BTS’s V became one of the last members of the globe-dominating band to release a solo collection a week ago when he dropped his own Layover EP on Friday (September 8). Now, the highly-anticipated project has become not only a bestseller in his home country, but a historic win for the superstar.

V’s Layover has made history by scoring the largest first-week sales figure ever for a solo musician in South Korea. According to data from Hanteo, one of the two main trackers of music sales in the nation and one that shares data in real time, reports that the EP sold 2,101,974 copies in just its first week in South Korea.

That sum makes V the first solo K-pop artist to pass the two million sales milestone in the first week of an album's release since Hanteo began tracking sales data.

Before Layover arrived, the record for the largest sales week in South Korean history for a solo musician belonged to another BTS star, Jimin. Earlier this year, he released his debut solo collection, a short set titled Face. That project performed spectacularly upon its arrival, selling 1.45 million copies in its first full week of availability.

Just one month later, fellow BTS star Suga returned with another release of his own, though it wasn’t his first. The musician, who also releases music under his Agust D alter ego, saw his first proper album D-Day rack up 1.28 million copies sold in its debut week in its first week. D-Day now ranks as the third-fastest-selling title by a soloist in the nation, when looking only at an album’s first week.

Layover is expected to perform well on music charts all around the world now that its first full week has ended. The set is headed for a top 10 start in the United States, perhaps opening at No. 2, behind Olivia Rodrigo’s new album Guts.