ARMYs Call Out Hanteo For Alleged Sales Manipulation With BTS Jimin's "Face"

Within the first few hours of its release, BTS Jimin’s album Face became a million-seller on Hanteo, a first for any Korean soloist.

‘FACE’ by Jimin becomes the first album by a soloist in Hanteo history to surpass over 1 million copies sold in its first day. pic.twitter.com/Ne2GX5dlvY

— Pop Base (@PopBase) March 24, 2023

As media outlets reported on the achievement, ARMYs celebrated the pathbreaking beginning of Jimin’s solo career. However, things started to go south when fans noticed that the site was not recording any new sales for almost six hours. They also noted that around 30,000 sales were removed within an hour, leading to more speculations.

Hanteo first added to FACE exactly 30k, then removed exactly 30k, and now added exactly 30k again.

Currently: 1.01M pic.twitter.com/lssYBm2UER

— milenna⁷ (@taesoothe) March 24, 2023

When ARMYs started enquiring about this discrepancy, Hanteo released a statement saying they had reviewed the sales data, and Face apparently sold 991,437 copies by March 24, 23:35 KST.

from HANTEO notice 💀 pic.twitter.com/g7y6gsfWDN

— prod jm – FACE by JIMIN (@jmnpromise) March 24, 2023

But fans caught the statement differing from the data on Hanteo’s website, which showed 1.75 million recorded sales within the mentioned time frame. It was the chart’s app version that reflected the smaller number.

On Hanteo’s website (PC Version), the hourly sales of the album for both FACE (CD)and FACE (Weverse Ver) are both shown!

FACE (CD) has a total sales of 1,501,589 while FACE (Weverse) has 252,957 sales!

Overall Total: 1,754,546 pic.twitter.com/OCRLnGdjNH

— Jimin Global 🌍 (@JiminGlobal) March 24, 2023

Kinda confused how they can say there is no issue and sales have been reported properly and yet there are two different numbers depending on what version of their platform you’re viewing the sales on??

— Lily ⁷ 🌪 IS SEEING YOONGI🥰 (@btsloyalist) March 24, 2023

While fans kept calling out the platform, asking for more clarity since the notice clearly negated the data provided by their own website, Hanteo, in an unprecedented decision, hid their real-time chart and graphs on the website. As suspicions of manipulation continued, the platform put out a second notice stating that they were conducting a complete survey and would get back to fans’ inquiries again.

let's see how they try to swing it now . pic.twitter.com/UXXz5sgm7S

— fai like crazy day ✨ (@myyouwithjk) March 24, 2023

The situation has upset fans, who are seeing it as a continued effort to sabotage BTS’s commercial success. Some fans even suspect Kakao M to be the source of the foul play since the company acquired most of Hanteo in 2018.

bts are the only artists whose sales get miscalculated and wrongly deleted by @HanteoNews, who @billboard counts unofficial videos streams for charts & sabotages an hot100 entry and whose views gets deleted and frozen by @YouTube for not reason

— outroseokss⁷🪞 (@callmebyyourjin) March 24, 2023

Hanteo in bed with Kakao pic.twitter.com/sneLTuyhwe

— Khoya⁷👩🏽‍💻 (@khoya0997) March 24, 2023

let's act surprised pic.twitter.com/vgCLOVSapE

— fai like crazy day ✨ (@myyouwithjk) March 24, 2023

so kakao and hanteo. connect the dots.

— Olive ⁷ (@yeopiphany) March 24, 2023

While waiting for Hanteo’s clarification, ARMYs are pulling hard to ensure that Jimin gets his million-seller record even with the updated numbers. If they manage to make it happen, it would be the fourth time the album will hit 1 million sales within a day.