Dispatch ranks the Girl Groups of 2013

Crayon Pop, 2NE1, 4minute, After School, Apink, Dal Shabet, f(x), Girl

As usual, the competition among the trending idol girl groups has been fiercely intense in the year of 2013. They have been releasing albums left and right, filming CFs, doing individual events, and more to get their name out there.

Media outlet Dispatch ranked the top girl groups of 2013 by giving them scores based on various factors such as music album sales, music scores (based on digital charts), YouTube views, music show wins, rankings on overseas iTunes charts, number of fan cafe members, and more. Out of all the songs a girl group may have promoted during the year, the song with the best score was chosen as the standard for each category's points.

Although the competition may have been fierce, Girls' Generation unsurprisingly grabbed the number one spot with quite a lead, more than tripling the score of second place runner-ups SISTAR.

Girls' Generation won first place with a total of 1,194 points for their 2013 hit song "I Got a Boy," which was ranked in third place for the music score category. The girls received a lot of points (709) thanks to the high number of views on YouTube, which were almost six times the amount of second-place group for this category, 2NE1. Girls' Generation got about 70 million views while 2NE1 got about 13 million views. Their fourth album 'I Got a Boy' sold about 290,000 copies and they had 21 events, 31 pictorials, 25 advertisements, garnering a total of 177 points in that category.

Having released "Give it to Me" in July, SISTAR won first place in the category for most wins on music shows, having won twice on 'Inkigayo,' twice on 'Music Core,' and three times on 'Music Bank.' The song also got second place in the music score category. Because of their busy schedule, they only ranked number five in the category for events, pictorials, and CFs.

f(x) made a lot of music sales with their second album 'Pink Tape,' released in July. They sold about 70,000 copies, grabbing the number two spot in the category. A Pink followed them in third place for a total of 35,000 copies. Quite a difference. f(x) is also very popular overseas, being number one on the iTunes charts for six different countries: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, and Cambodia. Within two years, their MV also got almost 13 million views on YouTube.

4minute released their fourth mini-album 'What's Your Name' in April, accumulating a total of about 104 million points on Gaon Chart for first place in music score. They have about 35,000 members in their fan cafe while they were at a poor disadvantage in the category for foreign iTunes chart rankings. Gayoon participated in six events on her own while Hyuna participated in four CFs. The group got fourth place for YouTube views (~ 12 million) and fifth place for music sales (~ 14,000 copies).

2NE1 proved very popular overseas. They released "Falling in Love" in July, which became number one on seven different countries' iTunes charts: Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, and Hong Kong. They got second place for YouTube points (134) with a total of 13 million views. However, their scores within Korea were relatively low because "Falling in Love" was a digital single. As they did not sell any physical albums, there were no points in that category. Their points in the promotion category were also low as YG minimized the girls' exposure, putting them in ninth place for nine pictorials and three CFs. Regardless, they won second place for the number of fan cafe members (~ 78,000).

Check out the full list in the bar graph and charts below to see the full breakdown.