There are many opinions about what the top groups are. However, the only ones we’ve come across that appear to have an objective basis are those created by the Korean Business Institute. These rankings are based on “the analysis of consumers’ participation, media coverage, interaction, and community indexes for 107,418,362 pieces of big data on about 50 girl groups.” The Korean Business Institute statistics are released monthly. Our analysis provides a broader and more balanced view by combining the monthly rankings into annual averages. As you can see from the above graphic, 11 groups have dominated the rankings for the 18 months.

This graph represents annual averages by the month of the rankings of the top 10 Kpop Girl Groups.

This graph shows the rank distribution of the top 10 Kpop Girl Groups.

The popularity of the top groups is remarkably stable. For example, TWICE has ranked number one for 17 periods and number two for two periods during the time that we have maintained data for this analysis.

This graph represents annual averages by the month of the rankings of the top 20 Kpop Girl Groups.

This graph shows the rank distribution of the top 20 Kpop Girl Groups.

The popularity of the top 5 groups is remarkably stable. The lower the rank, the more variable the rank distribution becomes.