Who Buys K-Pop in the US? 2026 Data Says Fans in Their 40s, 50s
American K-pop fans bought 281% more Korean albums this year than last, and the fans spending the most per person are largely in their 40s and 50s. That cuts against the assumption that this fandom runs mostly on teenage allowance money. That's the headline out of a report from The Korea Times , published this morning, drawing on Korea Customs Service export data and a Billboard survey of nearly 1,400 fans, K-Pop Fandom in the U.S. , released last year. It puts a number on something a lot of longtime fans have suspected for a while: the demographic that's loudest online isn't necessarily the one funding the industry. The Numbers Behind the Headline K-pop album exports to the US hit $74.12 million in the first half of 2026, up from $19.45 million a year earlier, per the Korea Customs Service figures the Korea Times cites. That makes the US the single largest overseas market for Korean albums, ahead of both Japan ($45.61 million) and China ($61.18 million). Germany posted...