TUIDE post 2026's biggest female debut week with 112,282 copies for TUNE & PLAY

TUIDE sold 112,282 copies of their first mini album TUNE & PLAY in its opening week, the biggest debut week any female act has posted in Korea this year.

A top ten debut, on the first try

TUNE & PLAY arrived August 24 as the first girl group release from ABD, a new HYBE label. HYBE says the album entered the all-time top ten for girl group debut first-week sales.

For a group with no back catalogue and no prior activity to carry it, clearing six figures in seven days puts TUIDE in a bracket most rookie acts reach on their second or third release.

The rookie class of 2026 is close

OURBIRTHDAY, from JYP subsidiary INNIT Entertainment, sold 111,324 copies of their debut single OUR BIRTH DAY. The two are separated by 958 copies, which is under one percent.

That is the tightest debut race the girl group field has had in years, and both acts are building audiences at roughly the same speed.

SUN KISS is still climbing

The title track has kept moving after release week. It reached number 5 on Apple Music's Today's Top 100 in Korea on August 29, after hitting number 24 on Spotify's Korea Daily Top Songs on August 28.

Those are chart positions rising several days into a release, which is the pattern of a song still finding listeners rather than one that peaked on day one.

The read: a new label, a different starting line

Start with the comparison being made. LE SSERAFIM opened at 307,450 in 2022, NewJeans at 311,271 later that year and ILLIT at 380,056 in 2024, all above 300,000.

Those three launched from labels with an established artist roster feeding them. ABD is a first-time label with no existing fandom to route into a debut, which is a materially different starting position.

The industry norm is to launch a rookie under a label that already has a hit act, because the crossover audience does the first week's work. HYBE chose to open a new label instead, and the result was the year's largest female debut without that head start.

What is unproven is the second album. Debut-week numbers measure how well a launch was resourced; the follow-up measures whether a fandom formed, and that is the figure to hold TUIDE to.

NEXT — Watch TUIDE's second release against this 112,282 baseline. A rookie whose second week and second album both grow is building a base, and that is the number that decides the next two years.

Which group do you want next, and what merch should come with it? Tell us in the comments. Fanista will make it happen.

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