Blackpink’s ‘The Album’ Aiming For No. 2 Debut On Billboard 200 With Biggest Pure Sales Of The Week

After months of anticipation, Blackpink’s debut album got off to an explosive start on Friday and is pacing for a No. 2 debut on the Billboard 200 with the biggest “pure” sales of the week, HITS Daily Double reports. 

The South Korean girl group’s debut full-length, aptly titled The Album, is projected to move 110,000-125,000 album-equivalent units in its first week, good for a second-place bow behind 21 Savage and Metro Boomin’s Savage Mode II (170,000-195,000 units). That sum includes 90,000-100,000 “pure” sales derived from physical and digital album sales, while the rest will come from streams and individual track downloads. 

Although The Album is headed for a No. 2 overall debut, it should easily score the biggest sales of the week, as the bulk of Savage Mode II’s units will come from streaming. The Album’s sales are bolstered by four deluxe CD editions and over three dozen digital album/merchandise bundles available on Blackpink’s website. 

The first-week projections for The Album show just how much Blackpink’s U.S. presence has grown over the past year and a half. The quartet’s debut full-length will vastly outperform its 2019 EP Kill this Love, which debuted at No. 24 on the Billboard 200 with 19,200 units, including roughly 9,100 pure sales.

The Album was preceded by Blackpink’s two highest-charting singles on the Hot 100 to date: “How You Like That” (No. 33) and “Ice Cream” featuring Selena Gomez (No. 13). The former broke the 24-hour YouTube debut record with 86.3 million views, a record that BTS broke less than two months later with “Dynamite” (101.1 million). 

Blackpink released The Album’s third single, “Lovesick Girls,” alongside the album on Friday. It debuted at No. 3 on the global Spotify chart with 4.88 million streams, and its music video has already surpassed 100 million YouTube views.

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