KPop Stars Dominate 2025 Global Music Charts
KPop artists have delivered the most popular songs worldwide in 2025, according to new data from the music industry.
Rosé, a member of Blackpink, achieved the year's biggest global hit with her collaboration with Bruno Mars on the track "APT," which has surpassed two billion streams.
This marks the first occasion that a song featuring non-English lyrics has topped the annual global chart published by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
The second most successful hit of 2025 was "Golden," performed by Huntr/x, an animated girl group featured in Netflix's hit series KPop Demon Hunters.
The remarkable success of "APT" also represents the first time an artist from outside North America or Europe has led the IFPI chart.
Although predominantly sung in English, "APT" begins with spoken Korean lines that translate as:
"Chaeyoung's favourite random game. Random game. Game start."
The chorus repeats the Korean word "아파트," pronounced "apateu," which means "apartment" in English.
Victoria Oakley, CEO of the IFPI, described this achievement as a
"landmark moment".
Bruno Mars also appears on another top-five hit, collaborating with Lady Gaga on "Die With A Smile," which ranked fourth.
US singer Alex Warren's "Ordinary" was the third most popular single, while Benson Boone's "Beautiful Things" secured the fifth spot. Notably, Boone's song was the top single in 2024.
Most of the songs dominating the chart were released prior to 2025; eight of the top ten best-selling singles originated from earlier years.
For the second year running, no British artists appeared in the global top ten singles of the year.
However, British singer Lola Young reached 11th place with her breakthrough single "Messy," which has accumulated over one billion streams.
Another track from KPop Demon Hunters, "Soda Pop," performed by Huntr/x's rival boyband Saja Boys, also made it into the top 20.
Earlier this week, the IFPI announced that Taylor Swift was the biggest global artist of 2025 overall.
Swift appears once in the year-end top singles list with "The Fate of Ophelia," the lead single from her album The Life of a Showgirl, which placed 19th.
The IFPI will release the list of the top 20 albums of 2025 on Friday.
