[Edaily Starin KIM HYUNSIK Reporter] Survey results have been released that offer insight into the fame and popularity of the group BTS in the United States.

Their agency, Big Hit Music, announced on the 14th, “According to a survey conducted by global music data firm Luminate in the second quarter of this year among U.S. music consumers, BTS’s brand awareness and favorability stood at 42% and 46%, respectively.”
Luminate first conducted an awareness survey asking music consumers if they knew BTS in 2021. That figure, which stood at 36% at the time, rose by 6 percentage points to 42% in this latest survey. This figure is close to the all-time high of 43% recorded in the third quarter of last year.
The average awareness rate for all artists surveyed by Luminate is 24%, and BTS exceeded this by 18 percentage points. Compared to the average awareness rate of 11% for 22 K-pop groups, this figure is approximately four times higher.
Surveys by age group also confirmed their broad appeal. The percentage of respondents who said they knew BTS was 43% for those aged 13–17, 59% for those aged 18–24, 56% for those aged 25–34, 44% for those aged 35–54, and 28% for those aged 55 and older. Among the core music-consuming demographic of 18–34-year-olds, more than half were aware of BTS, and the group also enjoyed consistent recognition among teenagers and middle-aged and older adults.
Favorability reached an all-time high. In a survey conducted in the second quarter of this year among respondents who said they were “familiar with” BTS, the group’s favorability rating stood at 46%. Among them, 19% answered “Like a lot,” and 27% answered “Like somewhat.” This represents a 12 percentage point increase from the first survey in 2021 (34%) and is the highest figure since Luminate began surveying BTS.
By age group, the figures were 60% for those aged 13–17, 47% for those aged 18–24, 44% for those aged 25–34, 48% for those aged 35–54, and 40% for those aged 55 and older, recording a high level of over 40% across all age groups.

Meanwhile, according to Luminate’s survey, physical copies of BTS’s fifth studio album, “ARIRANG,” sold 516,000 copies in the United States alone during its first week of release, with approximately 40% of those—about 208,000 copies—sold as vinyl. This marks BTS’s highest-ever weekly vinyl sales record. It is also the highest weekly vinyl sales figure for any group since Lumineate began tracking album sales in 1991.
Luminate pointed to a high proportion of vinyl sales as a common characteristic of albums that have performed well on the Billboard 200, the main Billboard album chart, and analyzed that “BTS, which released vinyl simultaneously with their new album, also exhibited music consumption patterns similar to those of mainstream U.S. pop artists.”
Streaming figures were also released. Since its release on March 20, “Arirang” has recorded a total of 3.8 billion global on-demand streams (audio and video combined) across major music platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music over eight weeks. Cumulative streams subsequently surpassed 4.8 billion in week 12 and approached 5.7 billion in week 16.
Big Hit Music stated, “These survey results from Luminate demonstrate that BTS has built a broad public following beyond their fanbase, based on their high name recognition and favorability in the U.S.” The label added, “The high proportion of vinyl sales and sustained streaming performance over an extended period are indicators that underscore BTS’s continued influence in the global music market.”