BTS performs at ABC's Good Morning America Concert Series in Central Park in New York on May 15. Photo: IC

A Chinese Baidu fan club for K-pop idol V, a member of South Korean boy band BTS, set a record for the largest mass purchase made by a single fan club in China by buying 162,400 copies of BTS' album Map of the Soul: Persona. The record, a purchase of 161,000 copies of the album, was previously held by Chinese Baidu fan club for BTS member Jungkook.

BTS has been seeing increasing success in North America recently after appearing as the first South Korean musical guest on Saturday Night Live, an influential comedy show on US television, and on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. 

The group has numerous fans across the globe, collectively known as the Adorable Representative MC for Youth, or ARMY. 

While BTS' music is not officially sold in the Chinese mainland market, the region still boasts a considerable amount of fans, known as C-ARMY, who are particularly fond of V and Jungkook.  

While there is a main fan club on Baidu, a Chinese search engine, for the entire band, there are also separate fan clubs for each member. 

Most Chinese fans buy albums through shops on e-commerce platform Taobao that import them from South Korea or from individuals who purchase the albums for them in South Korea. 

"We can only purchase albums from the website of Big Hit Entertainment, which is the company that the band belongs to. They do ship to China but the shipment fee is expensive. Plus, I do not want to go through all the troubles to register for an account," said Olivia Pei, a Chinese fan of BTS, explaining why she purchased the band's albums through an individual she met on Sina Weibo. 

On Sina Weibo, the V Baidu fan club, for instance, has been taking orders from the fans and then making mass purchases overseas. 

According to a Sina Weibo post from the club featuring a picture of purchase receipts and sales confirmations, at 11:34 am on Monday, V's Baidu fan club had purchased 162,400 copies of Map of the Soul: Persona, the most albums bought by a single fan club in China. 

The post noted that the club had sent the paperwork to Hanteo, a real time chart tracking platform for K-pop, to validate the authenticity of the purchases. The post also stated that more than 40,000 people participated in the purchase as a way to show support for their idol. 

Allkpop, an English-language, US-based Korean pop blog, published an article on Monday about the fan clubs' record-high orders. 

In comments to the article, some fans of BTS expressed their gratitude for C-ARMY's efforts and support, while others were surprised to see how popular the South Korean band was in China. 

"Perhaps it is a perfect time for BTS to spread their wings to China also. BTS has conquered the [South] Korean market and the US, Japan, Europe. I believe that there are many C-Army [members] out there!" noted one comment.
Newspaper headline: Showing support