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 Research Institute. These rankings are determined through an analysis of the consumer participation, media coverage, interaction, and community indexes of various girl groups.

The Korean Business Research Institute statistics are released monthly. Our analysis provides a broader and more balanced view by combining the monthly rankings into annual averages.

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

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

For example, TWICE has ranked number one for seven periods, number two for five periods, and number three for six periods during the time that we have maintained data for this analysis. The popularity of the top groups is remarkably stable. The lower the rank, the more variable the rank distribution becomes.

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

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

This chart shows how the ranks of the current top 20 girl groups have changed in the near term.

The first column shows the difference in rank between the current month and the previous month. The next column shows the difference in rank between the current month and a half years ago.

For example, AOA has moved down two rank positions from 15th to 17th place since last month and has moved down three rank positions from 14th place since a half year ago. On the other hand, DreamCatcher has moved up one rank position from 17th to 16th place since last month and has moved up two positions from 18th place since a half year ago.