There Are Different Ways To Order BTS' 'Map Of The Soul: Persona' Based On Your Country
BTS fans, are you pumped for their new album, or what?! Who am I kidding? Of course you're pumped. This is BTS and the BTS ARMY we're talking about here. Big Hit Entertainment (the label that created BTS and, now, their sibling group TXT) announced on Monday, March 11, that BTS' highly anticipated new album is titled Map Of The Soul: Persona, and will be releasing on April 12! That's wonderful news for the BTS ARMYs, who have been anxiously waiting for this announcement for months. Now that the album is confirmed, fans might be asking, "How do I pre-order BTS' Map Of The Soul: Persona in my country?" It can be a bit confusing, especially if you want to ensure that you're helping bolster the group's album sales in your respective country.
To know where to pre-order Map Of The Soul: Persona, you first have to understand how music charts work. Where the U.S. and Canada have the Billboard charts, Korea has the Gaon and Hanteo charts.
Buying BTS' music from your country's official pre-order links, no matter where in the world you are, will contribute to the Gaon and Hanteo physical sales charts.
The Hanteo chart records album sales from Hanteo-approved sites and stores in real-time. Basically, it tracks the sheer number of times an album was purchased by an actual person because Hanteo-approves retailers report sales numbers to Hanteo daily. But Hanteo does not reflect total sales, however, because albums purchased from unapproved retailers would not reflect on the chart.
The Gaon chart, however, records popularity by measuring shipments of albums to stores. If people keep on buying the album and requiring stores to restock their shelves, that will keep them trending on the Gaon chart. Gaon does not reflect real-time sales because tracking album shipments doesn't necessarily translate into actual sales. Gaon's total sales numbers are more accurate in the long-term, however, because the numbers are readjusted at the end of the year to reflect "returns" of albums that weren't actually sold.
To put this more plainly: Hanteo tracks the number of times an album is purchased by individuals in real-time, and Gaon tracks how popular the album remains after its initial release based on album shipments.
The rub here is that you have to be careful about the links you pre-order from to make sure your purchase counts in every way possible. For example, while buying the album from unofficial Amazon or eBay sources may get you a physical album in your hands, that purchase may not be reflected on Billboard or the Hanteo chart, as some third-party retailers on those sites are not approved or tracked on Billboard or Hanteo.
Big Hit Entertainment announced in August 2017 that they had a partnership with Amazon Prime to ensure that North American sales contributed to the Billboard charts. So if you're American or Canadian and are hoping to help bolster the group's standing on Billboard, you can pre-order the album on Amazon and all of the album's purchases will also affect the Gaon and Hanteo charts.
Here are all of the ways you can pre-order BTS' Map Of The Soul: Persona in your country:
U.S.A.
Album purchases in the U.S. that will contribute to the Billboard, Gaon, and Hanteo charts can be bought on Amazon's U.S. website, Target, and Persona.USA.IBIGHIT.com.
Canada
Canadian purchases will be counted toward the Billboard Canada charts, Gaon, and Hanteo charts. You can pre-order the album on Amazon's Canadian site.
United Kingdom
Purchases from the U.K. will count toward the U.K.'s Official Charts, as well as Hanteo and Gaon. Pre-orders can be made on Amazon's U.K. site.
Anywhere Else
Map Of The Soul: Persona can be pre-ordered by international ARMYs on BigHit Shop, KTown4U, and YesAsia.
But, again, fans in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. shouldn't pre-order the album from those sites if their goal is to help BTS' sales on their respective music charts.
Get yourselves ready for more BTS music, people!!
