AND2BLE clear their debut mark with two days to spare
AND2BLE have broken their own first-week sales record on their first comeback, and they did it with the week still running. According to Hanteo Chart figures reported by Soompi, the group had shifted 751,299 copies of the mini album Sequence 02: Attraction by the end of 31 October.
The album arrived on 27 October with French Kissing as its title track. That places the 751,299 figure five days into the counting period, which runs until 2 November. The record it replaces belongs to AND2BLE themselves: their debut mini album, Sequence 01: Curiosity, posted 731,673 copies in its first week earlier this year.
The headline is therefore not simply that a young group has sold well. It is that a release has outdone a full seven-day total in five days, which changes the shape of the story. The number will keep moving until the window shuts, and the final tally is not yet known.
What a Hanteo first-week figure counts
Hanteo Chart is one of the physical sales trackers used in the Korean music industry, aggregating album sales recorded through participating retailers. A first-week figure, sometimes called a first-week total, covers the days immediately after a release, which is why the comparison between five days and seven days matters here.
This is a measure of physical copies moving out of shops, not streams or digital downloads. In K-pop, that number is shaped by pre-orders, by the number of versions a release is issued in, and by fans buying multiple copies, often in connection with events tied to purchases. Those factors are part of how the market works rather than something unusual to this album, but the published figure does not break down where the copies went.
Reading the total as a straightforward popularity score flattens that. It is better understood as evidence of organised demand around a release, concentrated into a short window that the industry watches closely.
Two albums, one continuing story
The titles do a lot of work on their own. Sequence 01: Curiosity introduced the group; Sequence 02: Attraction follows it, and the numbering implies a project laid out in chapters rather than a set of unrelated releases. That framing is a common way for new acts to build a narrative across early releases, and it gives listeners a reason to treat the second mini album as a continuation rather than a fresh start.
It also makes the sales comparison unusually clean. Because both albums sit inside the same sequence and arrived within the same year, the two first-week figures measure the same audience at two points, roughly. Growth of just under 20,000 copies between them, achieved in less time, is a modest-looking gap on paper that represents real movement in the size of the buying audience.
What the titles do not tell us is anything reliable about the music itself. French Kissing is the title track, but its sound, its reception and how it sits alongside the debut material are separate questions that the chart data cannot answer.
Why the first week carries so much weight
First-week sales have become one of the standard reference points in K-pop coverage, and not because a single week decides an act's future. The figure is fast, comparable and published while interest is at its peak, which makes it the number most likely to be quoted in the days after a comeback. It functions as a shorthand for the scale of a fandom at a particular moment.
For a group on their second release, that shorthand is especially useful to the people around them. It suggests whether the audience that arrived with the debut has held, grown or thinned. Agencies, promoters and broadcasters all read those signals when planning what comes next, though how much weight any individual decision gives them is not something outsiders can see.
There is a limit to how much a record-breaking week can tell us. It rewards concentrated buying, and a strong opening does not automatically translate into long-term playlist presence, touring demand or staying power. It is one measurement taken at one moment, not a verdict.
The peer comparison that gives the number context
Placing AND2BLE's figure next to other recent rookie albums is instructive, provided the caveats travel with it. KickFlip's own first-week sales record, set with KICK OFF THE WALL Pt. 1 at 532,434 copies, beat their previous mark of 456,167. That is the same pattern seen here: a newer act improving on an early total rather than arriving at a fixed ceiling.
The gaps between these numbers reflect a range of things that have little to do with which group is more liked. Release timing, the number of album versions, the scale of pre-orders and the size of the existing fandom all push the total around. Direct rankings across different agencies and different debut years are therefore of limited use.
What the comparisons do show is a market in which first-week records fall fairly often among groups building their first audiences, which is worth remembering when a single milestone is presented as a breakthrough on its own.
What to watch before the window closes
Tracking for Sequence 02: Attraction continues to 2 November, so the figure reported here is a floor rather than a final number. Whatever the closing total turns out to be, it will be measured against the 731,673 copies of Sequence 01: Curiosity and against the five-day pace set this week.
For listeners rather than statisticians, the more interesting question is what comes after a week like this. Comeback schedules fill up quickly at this point in the year, and anyone planning to follow what lands next can keep an eye on the K-pop comeback calendar. November is already a crowded month, which makes a strong opening week useful positioning but not a guarantee of attention.
Soompi's report is the source for the sales figures and release details here. The final first-week total, and any subsequent activity around the album, will only become clear once the counting window has closed.
The takeaway
AND2BLE have improved on their debut's first-week sales inside five days, which is a genuine milestone for a group on only their second mini album. The number is large enough to matter commercially and early enough in the window to suggest the final total will sit comfortably above the previous record.
The more telling detail is the pace. Records falling in five days rather than seven point to a buying audience that has grown between Sequence 01: Curiosity and Sequence 02: Attraction, even if the precise reasons for that growth sit outside what a sales chart can show.