Key Takeaways
- CORTIS' second EP, GreenGreen, has sold more than 4.1 million copies, making it only the second South Korean release this year to cross that mark, trailing just BTS' comeback album Arirang.
- The EP's opening week alone accounted for roughly 2.3 million copies, and combined sales across CORTIS' two EPs have now topped 6.4 million in just over thirteen months since the group's debut.
- The milestone lands as CORTIS wraps a sold-out tour and gears up for an October appearance at Singapore's Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend.
CORTIS has crossed a sales threshold that, so far in 2026, only one other South Korean act has managed to reach. The BigHit Music quintet's second EP, GreenGreen, has now moved more than 4.1 million copies since its May release, according to Circle Chart data covering the week of September 6 through 12, first reported by The Korea Times. The only other South Korean release to top four million in 2026 is Arirang, BTS' fifth studio album.
A Sales Curve That Keeps Climbing
GreenGreen's opening week set the tone for everything that followed. Hanteo Chart tracking showed the EP moving roughly 2.3 million copies in its first seven days on shelves — nearly five times the first-week haul of CORTIS' 2025 debut release. By mid-July, cumulative sales had reached 3.09 million, a benchmark the group hit in just eleven weeks, according to an earlier Korea Times report. Two months later, that total had climbed past four million.
The momentum hasn't been confined to the newer release, either. CORTIS' debut EP, Color Outside the Lines, put out in September 2025, has added roughly one million copies of its own so far in 2026, raising its career total to nearly 2.3 million. Between the two projects, the group's combined album sales now sit above 6.4 million copies in just over thirteen months since its 2025 debut, per Sports Kyunghyang's tally of Circle Chart figures.
The Only Rival Is BTS
That CORTIS now shares 2026's four-million club with BTS says as much about the group's trajectory as it does about the scale of BTS' comeback. Arirang arrived on March 20, the septet's first full studio release since all seven members completed their compulsory military duty by June 2025, a comeback Rolling Stone detailed extensively ahead of release. By contrast, CORTIS only stepped onto the stage as a group on August 18, 2025 — a little over a year before joining that same sales tier.
The comparison isn't a claim that CORTIS has caught up to BTS in absolute terms; Arirang's sales figures remain well ahead of GreenGreen's. But for a five-member act barely into its second year, sharing a sales tier with HYBE's flagship group at all is being read across the industry as proof that CORTIS has moved past rookie status.
Eighteen Weeks on Billboard's Biggest Chart
GreenGreen's reach has extended past domestic charts. The EP entered the Billboard 200 at No. 3 in its first week — among the fastest climbs into the chart's top three by any K-pop act outside of multi-label project groups — and has now logged 18 straight weeks on the listing, settling at No. 188 on the chart dated September 19.
The sales run has coincided with a packed touring schedule. CORTIS wrapped its first headlining run, the 2026 CORTIS Tour, across South Korea, North America and Japan, with the North American leg — billed as "Put Your Phone Down" — selling out all seven shows across six cities within minutes of tickets going on sale, according to BroadwayWorld's coverage of the tour's close.
The group also released the Juicy J collaboration "Motion" on July 31, a day before making its Lollapalooza debut in Chicago on August 1 in front of roughly 50,000 festival-goers, per Bandwagon Asia's account of the set, making CORTIS the sole K-pop boy group appearing at that edition of the festival. A month later, CORTIS added two more tracks, "Pack It Up" and "MoneyMoneyMoney," to an expanded GreenGreen edition, keeping the EP's promotional cycle alive even as sales kept climbing.
What Comes Next
CORTIS isn't slowing its schedule down. A television special covering the group's Japanese tour leg, "2026 CORTIS Tour in Japan," is set to air October 31, and CORTIS is also booked to appear during Singapore's Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend that October, according to IBTimes Singapore. BigHit Music says it plans additional legal steps following a break-in at the members' shared residence back in July, part of a broader push to protect the group's privacy as its profile grows.
The group closed out 2025 by sharing the Best New Artist award with Hearts2Hearts at the MAMA Awards in Hong Kong, per Hanteo News' coverage of the ceremony — a trophy that, in hindsight, looks like an early signal of the commercial run that followed.
