First-week sales (초동): how an album's opening week is counted

First-week sales (초동, chodong) are what the Korean record industry counts over an album’s opening week — literally “first movement”, the copies counted in the seven days that follow a release. Two organisations publish album figures in Korea, and they are counting two different things. That is why the same album can carry two different numbers on the same day, and why neither of them is the wrong one.

This guide explains how each of those numbers is built, what each one includes and leaves out and how to work out which one you are looking at. It is a reading guide: every step is something you do to a number you have already seen. It was checked on 27 August 2026 against the pages Hanteo Chart (한터차트) and Circle Chart (써클차트) publish themselves, one retailer’s own published notice and two dated Korean press reports.

One thing to settle before the steps. Neither chart operator publishes a page saying how long the first week is. The seven-day length comes from the press: 데일리스포츠한국 wrote it in 2022 as “앨범 발매 후 7일 간의 판매량”, sales in the seven days after release, and 오피니언뉴스 in 2023 as “음반 발매 후 최초 1주일간의 판매량”, sales in the first week after release. Treat seven days as an industry convention that the press states and the charts do not — not as a published rule.

1. Start from the album’s release date

First-week sales are counted from the day the album comes out, not from the start of a calendar week. Hanteo’s own site calls that stretch the 초동 기간 (chodong period) and describes its 초동 page as “초동 기간 동안의 판매량을 기록한 페이지” — a page recording sales during the first-week sales period. It does not say on any of its pages how many days the period runs, which is why the length is press-attributed above.

So the first thing to write down is the release date. Every other step depends on it.

• A worked example of the shape: Sports Kyunghyang reported that the third mini album lip bomb by RESCENE, released on 25 November 2025, recorded 104,406 copies on the Hanteo Chart between 25 November and 1 December 2025. One album, one named operator, one seven-day span that opens on release day. A first-week figure that cannot be pinned to those three things is not yet readable.

2. Find out which organisation published the number

Two names do this work in Korea, and the difference between them is the whole subject of this guide.

• Hanteo Chart, run by HANTEO GLOBAL, describes itself as the only music chart in the world built on real-time sales figures, and its album chart as the only real-time album chart aggregating the physical record sales of K-pop artists.
• Circle Chart defines its album chart on its own FAQ page as an aggregation of 출고단위 도매 수량 — wholesale shipment units, the copies sent out toward shops — with 반품 (returns, unsold copies sent back) reflected as a deduction.

One counts what left a shop’s till. The other counts what left the warehouse, minus what came back. There is no conversion between them, so a figure whose source is not named cannot be read at all. That is the honest answer, and it is worth giving.

A second thing worth knowing at this step: Circle publishes no chart cut called 초동. Its album chart is offered by week, by month and by year, and none of those cuts carries that name. A first-week figure is, in practice, a Hanteo figure.

3. Read a Hanteo figure as sales completed at registered shops

Hanteo’s album chart is fed by shops that have registered with it — the 패밀리 (Family) network — and transmit their own sales to it. A shop outside the network does not feed the count. Hanteo publishes a searchable directory of the shops it is connected to, and has occasionally announced that a named retailer is not among them.

• Only a Family shop’s own direct sale counts. Hanteo stated in May 2026 that 대리 판매 — proxy selling, where a third party buys on someone else’s behalf — is not reflected, even through an otherwise recognised platform.
• The count registers on despatch, not on ordering. The retailer YES24 publishes its own notice saying its album sales data is transmitted to Hanteo automatically every hour once 출고 (despatch — the copies physically leaving the warehouse) is complete. An order placed and a copy counted are two different moments. That is the retailer’s published rule about its own systems, not a rule Hanteo publishes.
• Copies, not orders. The same notice says that where one order number contains several copies of an album, that many copies are reflected.
• How many shops feed the chart is stated three different ways on Hanteo’s own pages. Its About page says the chart is connected directly to more than 1,500 record shops in one paragraph and that about 1,100 shops’ sales are aggregated in the next; the live album chart page says about 5,000 online and offline sales points. No reconciliation is published. The 5,000 figure is the one on the live chart page.
• Hanteo also shows a second column. Next to the copy count (판매량) sits an 음반 지수 (album index), a price-weighted score. 데일리스포츠한국 reported in 2022 that it arrived with the chart’s 4.0 relaunch, replacing a system in which every album counted as one copy whatever its size or price, and that the album chart would apply the index-first approach thereafter. First-week figures are quoted in 장 (copies), not in index points.

4. Read a Circle figure as shipments minus returns

Circle’s album chart measures the trade, not the till. Its FAQ defines the chart as 출고단위 도매 수량 — wholesale shipment units of TAPE, LP, CD, USB, KiT and Platform Album formats — with 반품 (returns) reflected as a deduction. YES24 describes the same rule from the retailer’s side: the wholesale volumes of the distributor plus the shipment volumes and returns of online sellers.

• Circle’s windows are fixed, and lag. The chart week runs from Sunday 12:00 noon to the following Sunday 11:59 and is published on the Thursday after at 11:00. The chart month runs from the 1st at 12:00 noon to 11:59 on the day after the month ends, published on the second Thursday at 11:00. An album released mid-week therefore falls into a partial first chart week — that is this site’s arithmetic on Circle’s two published windows, not a statement Circle makes.
• Circle runs a second album chart. The 소매점 앨범 차트 (Retail Album Chart) counts album sales at retail shops in real time, offered hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. So the popular shorthand — Circle counts shipments, Hanteo counts sales — is incomplete: Circle publishes both kinds of count, under two chart names.

5. Check which formats and versions the number covers

A first-week figure is a count of physical objects, and which objects are in it is published.

• The media Circle names in its album chart are TAPE, LP, CD, USB, KiT and Platform Album. 플랫폼 앨범 (platform album, also called a digital album) is Circle’s term for a release you reach by tapping or scanning a physical item with a phone instead of putting a disc in a player. Circle publishes six conditions for one: it must be distributed through a distributor’s physical-album chain; the record producer must release it officially as an album; the tracklist must be printed on the physical medium; the physical medium must be how the music is reached — playable offline, and needed again when the listener changes device, rather than allowing unrestricted downloads; the released audio must be included; and identical tracklists count as the same album while different media are counted separately. Circle approves a new platform medium after checking a sample against those conditions, and publishes the approved list, on which Weverse appears.
• Streaming and downloads are not in an album figure at all. Circle keeps streaming, download, BGM and V컬러링 charts separate from the album chart; Hanteo keeps its 음반차트 (album chart) apart from its 음원차트 (music chart) and publishes a third, combined 뮤직차트 weighted 70 per cent albums and 30 per cent music. A first-week album number contains no plays.
• Each version is its own line. Hanteo’s live album chart carries the versions of one release as separate rows, including rows labelled Weverse Albums ver. Circle’s sixth condition says the same thing from the other direction: same tracklist, same album; different medium, counted separately.
• A multi-disc package can be ruled to be several copies. When one such package raised questions in April 2025, Hanteo said it had reviewed the label’s product documentation, ruled the item a simple package made up of three copies and published the resulting first-week figure as 51,249 copies from 17,083 sets. That was a published ruling on one product after enquiries — not a standing formula that applies to the next box.

6. Expect the figure to move after it is published

A first-week number is not final on the day it appears, and the operator says so in public.

• Hanteo publishes corrections on its 공지사항 (notices) board, by album and by date: a shop’s system sending the same data twice, sending the wrong data, failing to send at all and Hanteo’s own aggregation server being overloaded. At least six such notices appear there between February 2025 and August 2026, with the standard wording that the full sales data was analysed and the figure accurately corrected under Hanteo’s internal rules.
• Cancellations and refunds are handled in an audit, not instantly. Publishing the 2024 annual chart in February 2025, Hanteo stated that its figures are collected from about 1,500 sales channels worldwide, that duplicated data and cancelled or refunded orders can arise in that process and that its annual final figure comes from a full audit of the year’s data — so the annual figure may differ from the sum of the figures published during the year. How a single cancellation is treated at the moment it happens is not published anywhere the site could find. A guide that tells you returns are deducted immediately, or that they are never deducted, is going beyond what either operator has said.
• A shop can leave the network. Hanteo warned a shop in February 2025 that repeated data errors could see it removed from the Family network.

So the figure someone quoted on day three is not necessarily the figure of record.

7. Take a doubtful figure to the operator’s own pages

When a specific album’s number looks wrong, the operators’ own pages are the place it gets resolved, and they are public.

• Corrections are announced on Hanteo’s notices board, naming the album and the date.
• Chart definitions, the counted media, the platform-album conditions and the weekly and monthly windows are all on Circle’s FAQ page.
• Whether a particular shop feeds Hanteo’s count can be looked up in Hanteo’s directory of connected shops.
• Documents are worth a note of their own. Hanteo stated in May 2026 that the 차트 반영 확인서 documents issued by various third-party platforms are unrelated to it. The document Hanteo itself recognises is the 한터차트 반영 인증서, issued by a Family shop, whose code can be looked up on Hanteo’s own site.

And where the operators are silent, this guide stays silent too. Whether a pre-order despatched before release day falls inside the window, and how long after a Circle week a return can still be booked back against it, are not published on either operator’s pages. Any guide that answers those confidently is guessing.

Frequently asked questions

Why do two reports give different first-week numbers for the same album?

Because two organisations are counting two different things. Hanteo counts sales completed at the shops registered with and connected to it, in real time. Circle’s album chart counts the copies shipped out to the trade, with returns deducted. They answer different questions, so neither is the wrong number — the useful question is which one you are reading.

Does streaming count toward first-week sales?

No. Both operators keep album charts and music charts apart: Circle publishes streaming, download, BGM and V컬러링 charts separately from its album chart, and Hanteo keeps 음반차트 and 음원차트 apart while publishing a third, combined 뮤직차트 weighted 70 per cent albums and 30 per cent music. An album’s first-week figure contains no plays.

Does Circle publish a first-week sales figure?

Not under that name. Circle’s album chart is offered as weekly, monthly and yearly cuts, and its chart week is a fixed Sunday-to-Saturday window rather than seven days from a release date. Hanteo is the operator that runs a dedicated 초동 page.

Does a Weverse Album or a KiT count as an album?

Yes, as a platform album, if it meets the published conditions: distributed through a distributor’s physical-album chain, released by the record producer as an album, tracklist printed on the physical medium, the music reached through that medium and playable offline and the medium needed again when the listener changes device. Circle names Weverse in its approved list and lists KiT among the counted media; Hanteo’s live album chart carries Weverse Albums ver. rows.

Does an album bought at any shop count?

Not necessarily. Only a shop registered with the operator feeds its count, and Hanteo has stated that only a Family shop’s own direct sale is accepted and that proxy selling is not reflected. Hanteo publishes a searchable directory of the shops connected to it, and has publicly named retailers that are not among them.

Is a first-week figure ever revised after it is published?

Yes. Hanteo publishes named corrections when a shop’s system sends data twice, sends the wrong data or fails to send it, and when its own aggregation server is overloaded, and it restates the affected figures. It has also said that its annual final figure comes from a full audit and may differ from the sum of the figures published during the year.

What is the difference between an 인증패 and a 써클 인증?

An 인증패 is a commemorative plaque Hanteo issues when an album’s first-week figure passes a level; Hanteo announces each one individually and publishes no table of levels, so any tier list you see is not an operator document. 써클 인증 (Circle certification) is a different thing: cumulative sales, available no earlier than six weeks after release and only for albums released on or after 1 January 2018, counted per single album of the same medium and tracklist, set at 250,000 (PLATINUM) and 1,000,000 (MILLION) and not available to overseas-licensed or not-for-sale albums.