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Axios
Axios
World
Erica Pandey

K-pop band BTS is worth as much to South Korea as Samsung or Hyundai

BTS performs in Las Vegas at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards. Photo: Todd Williamson/NBC/Getty Images

The uber-popular Korean pop boy band BTS accounts for $4.65 billion of South Korea's GDP, per the Hollywood Reporter.

Why it matters: That makes the band as valuable to South Korea's economy as multinational giants like Samsung and Hyundai.

A couple more crazy stats:

  • BTS sold 300,000 tickets for a U.S. tour in minutes, crashing Ticketmaster. And the seats cost an average of $452 each, notes the Hollywood Reporter.
  • The band's twitter account generates around 4 times as much engagement as President Trump's account, reports Axios' Neal Rothschild.
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