Boy band Wanna One is likely to be the shining stars of 2018, a survey conducted by Seven Edu, a middle school math education provider, reveals. The survey was conducted among 730 students and about 38 percent picked Wanna One of their favourites. They were followed by BTS (27%), Exo (13%), Winner (5%) and Infinite (5%).
A report on News24 stated, "Wanna One is the idol group that caused the whole nation syndrome in a short period of 4-5 months. As well as being a member of the group formed through the explosion fandom in a short period of time."
The boy band was formed with the winners of the 2017 series Produce 101 Season 2. The survival competition initially had 101 trainees representing various agencies, and the final 11 (chosen by audience voting) formed a band.
It comprises of eleven members—Kang Daniel, Park Ji-hoon, Lee Dae-hwi, Kim Jae-hwan, Ong Seong-wu, Park Woo-jin, Lai Kuan-lin, Yoon Ji-sung, Hwang Min-hyun, Bae Jin-young and Ha Sung-woon. Debuted in August 2017 by CJ E&M, the group will be disbanded in December 2018.
With immense brand recognition and marketing strategy, the boy group was ranked second in the 30 Powerful People list by Ilgan Sports and sixth in the top 10 artists of Gallup Korea survey. They were also announced as the Best K-pop Artist of 2017.
The group debuted with their extended play 1X1=1 (To Be One) with five tracks. The album was re-released under the title 1-1=0 (Nothing Without You) in November 2017. Wanna One also set the record for the highest numbers of pre-orders for a debut K-pop album with 600,000 bookings.
