Stray Kids’ Karma debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 313,000 units, including 296,000 pure sales — the second-largest first-week sales total of 2025. In this image released on December 12, 2024, Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin, and I.N. of Stray Kids perform at the 2024 Billboard Music Awards. (Photo by JYP Entertainment/Penske Media via Getty Images)
Penske Media via Getty Images
Stray Kids’ new release Karma is easily the biggest album in America right now. The South Korean boy band conquers multiple tallies with the recently-dropped project, and it doesn’t just sneak in — Karma beats every other title by a huge margin.
Karma manages one of the largest launches of 2025 in the biggest music market in the world, and Stray Kids come in behind only one other famous musical figure.
Karma Opens With Huge First-Week Sales
Karma arrives with 296,000 pure purchases in its first week. That’s the second-largest opening-week sales sum of 2025 in America.
The Weeknd Still Owns The Year’s Top Sales Launch
No. 1 for opening-week sales still belongs to The Weeknd’s latest album Hurry Up Tomorrow. That set launched with 359,000 sales, and a much more impressive total sum.
Stray Kids Hit No. 1 On The Billboard 200
Karma opens at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 — which lists the most-consumed albums and EPs in the U.S. — with 313,000 equivalent units. Morgan Wallen’s I’m the Problem leads 2025 releases, as it started with 493,000 equivalent units, while Hurry Up Tomorrow kicked off its time in first place on the same roster with 495,000 equivalent copies.
Taylor Swift May Top Them All Soon
These records will likely be beaten in just a few weeks when Taylor Swift drops her forthcoming album The Life of a Showgirl. The set, expected October 3, will almost certainly become the biggest seller of the year — and may do so in just a few days. Swift’s previous album The Tortured Poets Department debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 last year with 2.61 million equivalent units, and that sum included 1.914 million sales.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2025/09/07/stray-kids-score-the-second-largest-sales-week-of-2025-in-america/
