SEOUL – K-pop boy band Stray Kids have come in second in the United States in terms of album sales so far in 2023, said their company JYP Entertainment on Monday, citing music data site Chart Data.

American pop star Taylor Swift is ranked first.

Stray Kids’ latest release, their third full-length album 5-Star, is the best-selling K-pop album of 2023, added JYP Entertainment.

The group’s EP, Maxident (2022), also landed in 10th place in the rundown of the most popular K-pop albums.

When it came to overall sales for individual albums, 5-Star came in at No. 4, following Swift’s Midnights and Speak Now, and American rapper Travis Scott’s Utopia.

5-Star, which came out in June, placed Stray Kids on the top of the Billboard Artist 100 and Billboard 200 charts.

It marked the eight-piece boy band’s third consecutive No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the most important album chart in the US, following Oddinary and Maxident from 2022.

Stray Kids are set to make their US debut at the MTV Video Music Awards ceremony on Sept 12.

They will perform S-Class, the lead track of 5-Star, and compete in the Best K-pop category with the song.

The group will also take to the stage at the 2023 Global Citizen Festival as the event’s only Asian artistes. It is scheduled to take place on Sept 23 at Central Park in New York City.

Stray Kids are now in Japan on their first “dome” tour.

Named after 5-Star, the concert series kicked off in Fukuoka’s PayPay Dome in August and took place last weekend at the Vantelin Dome Nagoya.

The band will next perform at Osaka’s Kyocera Dome on Saturday and Sunday, and at the Tokyo Dome on Oct 28 to 29. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK