The number of K-pop videos uploaded on short-form mobile video platform TikTok has reached 98 million in three years.

TikTok and Space Oddity, a music start-up, revealed the “2021 K-pop TikTok Infographic,” which analyzed K-pop video data on TikTok for the first time including K-pop artists with the most followers and rising K-pop artists with the highest follower growth rate in six months from March to September 2021.

According to the report, in the past three years, TikTok's K-pop content has exploded worldwide. The number of K-pop videos on TikTok, which reached 33.5 million in 2019, nearly tripled to 97.87 million as of September 2021.

Of these, 92.8 percent were created overseas. Indonesia ranked first with 16.4 percent, generating the most videos using K-pop music. The Philippines placed second with 13.5 percent, followed by the US with 8.7 percent and South Korea, the home of K-pop, with 7.2 percent.

The report stated that the explosive growth and globalization of K-pop content has been greatly influenced by the TikTok platform, where anyone can easily create and share videos. It said the 'participatory' K-pop culture that started with TikTok does not stop at passive activities such as listening to music or watching videos, but also actively participating in creating and sharing secondary contents of various genres such as songs and dance covers, K-pop news, and situational dramas.

It added that TikTok features a variety of high engagement between users, artists and creators based on functions within the platform, such as duet-making videos using other people's videos, continuing filming, and replying to comments as videos.

The TikTok hashtag challenge, seen as more effective as it can expose music to an unspecified number of people, has been established as a major comeback promotion method for K-pop artists, starting with the success of singer Zico's “Any Song Challenge” in early 2019.

This is evidenced by the monthly official K-pop hashtag challenge on TikTok, which has increased by nearly 10 times compared to 2019.

Based on TikTok Popular K-pop Artists, BTS ranked first with the most cumulative followers. The rising K-pop artist with the highest follower growth rate in the past six months is STAYC.

Among the rising artists who have shown a high rate of follower growth over the past six months, the fourth generation K-pop artists who actively communicated with their fans through TikTok such as BDC and Weeekly stood out.

"TikTok is not only a global playground for fans around the world to listen to and consume K-pop songs, but also a co-creation culture where users actively participate, produce and share K-pop content,” said Bae Jung-hyun, director of TikTok Korea business development.

Here are the top 10 most followed K-pop artists on TikTok (as of September 2021), according to TikTok:

1. BTS - 39.4 million

2. BLACKPINK - 24.4 million

3. BLACKPINK’s Rosé - 19 million

4. TXT - 11.2 million

5. TWICE - 11 million

6. ENHYPEN - 8 million

7. Stray Kids - 7.9 million

8. NCT - 5.9 million

9. ITZY - 4.7 million

10. Jeon So-mi - 4.2 million

Rising K-pop artists in 2021 with the highest follower growth rate in the past six months from March 31, 2021 to Sept. 30, 2021, according to TikTok:

1. STAYC - 759,000 followers / 493.8% growth rate

2. BDC - 666,000 / 474.3%

3. Kim Woojin - 1.7 million - 234.7%

4. Weeekly - 1.2 million - 200.9%

5. Mirae - 766,000 - 170.1%

6. Ciipher - 287,000 - 147.5%

7. P1Harmony - 1.3 million - 110.4%

8. ASTRO - 3.8 million - 99%

9. BLACKPINK’s Rosé - 19 million - 97.3%

10. ITZY - 4.7 million - 94.7%