Blackpink's 'Kill This Love' surpasses 1 billion views on YouTube

K-pop

Published: 02 Sep. 2020, 17:45 Updated: 02 Sep. 2020, 18:19

Blackpink's 'Kill This Love' surpasses 1 billion views on YouTube

Girl group Blackpink's 2019 hit "Kill This Love" hit 1 billion views on Wednesday afternoon. [YG ENTERTAINMENT]

Girl group Blackpink's music video for its 2019 hit "Kill This Love" surpassed 1 billion views on YouTube on Wednesday afternoon, making it the first K-pop band to have two music videos with over 1 billion views.

According to the group's agency YG Entertainment, the music video hit the 1-billion-view mark at 3:09 p.m. Wednesday, a year and five months after it was released in April last year.

The first music video to surpass 1 billion views was "Ddu-du Ddu-du" (2018), which did so in November last year and is now close to 1.3 billion views as of Wednesday.

One factor that makes the record remarkable, according to YG Entertainment, is that the number of days it took for the video to accumulate 100 million views was actually shortened this summer thanks to the group's other hits that were released this year.

It took 56 days from July 7, when the music video hit 900 million views on YouTube, to hit 1 billion views on Wednesday, whereas it took 78 days to hit 900 million views from 800 million views and 106 days to reach 800 million views from 700 million views.

Girl group Blackpink's 2019 hit "Kill This Love" hit 1 billion views on Wednesday afternoon. [YG ENTERTAINMENT]

"The attention on Blackpink's past songs was heightened thanks to its new songs that came out recently," the agency said.

"The number of subscribers to Blackpink's YouTube channel rose by 9 million people from June 26 when 'How You Like That' was released up to now, recording 46.5 subscribers in total."

The music video for "How You Like That" hit 100 million views within 32 hours of its release.

"Ice Cream," a collaboration with pop star Selena Gomez released on Aug. 28, also hit 100 million views in a day and a half.

Zepeto Studio, Naver Z's avatar service, will release a 3-D avatar performance of Blackpink and Selena Gomez at 6 p.m. on Wednesday.

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]