Hanteo, one of the top album sales monitoring charts in Korea, has released their ’2011 Singer Award’ rankings.
Super Junior clinched 1st place with an overwhelming lead over all the other groups this year (~322,000 copies sold). Second place went to Big Bang (~217,000), while TVXQ has seized the 3rd spot (~201,000). They were followed by Kim Hyun Joong (~200,000) and JYJ (~158,000) for 4th and 5th places, respectively.
As expected, idols dominated album sales this year due to their large, dedicated fan bases. In addition, the top 5 are all male idols, with Kim Hyun Joong being the only male solo artist out of the five.
This chart is scheduled to be updated until the end of this year. However, with less than two months left in the year, it’s not likely that the rankings will change (with the exception of TVXQ and Kim Hyun Joong who are currently neck-and-neck).