I don't really care about sales. I just hope that she gets number one for the week. And from looking at sales so far, I think she will :D So, I'm happy.

I don't think these are bad sales. Considering the time that we're living in, this is as good as it's gonna get for a while.
Because Ayu's been around for some time and has released such high selling albums, for one album not to sell 500k it's like OMG FAILURE, AYU'S LOSING POPULARITY! and it's not like that at all! A few years ago with her million selling studio albums, people were actually willing to dish out money for CDs - now around 70% of the population just download because they can and that has HUGE impacts on artist's sales.

every year the sales will be lower and lower...and that's a counting mistake
because here we are 100 of ayu fans buying her overseas cds and dvds,
ORICON for me doesnt work (and sock)...because they are counting only the japanese sales..and ayu is an internatinal artist.
who cares about the sales of her country only? not me

That's just how ranking charts work. Billboard in the USA is the same way. All of these charts started out as information for the companies who sell music, so they know what is popular in their own countries, and can rank their own artists' performances.

Yeah, it'd be great if we had one (other than World Charts, which I think is very cheap-y) that did everything, but it's not for us, it's for industry insiders.

in my opinion 2007-2009 has had around the same economical consistency,

so if this album sells less then GUILTY, i am definitely not blaming the economy

specially with very obvious examples of albums that surpass the "economical crisis" because of their popularity

not saying she's not popular or w/e, but there's an obvious decrease in fans =/
which sucks for her if it continues with each album!

oh great~! Ayu's still at no. 1 ^_^

Ha... there seems to be many worries eh? Well, 2nd week is coming... and we'll see if DCT will surpass her, given their super consistent sales.

[QUOTE=Max_ZZZ;1878145if this album sells less then GUILTY, i am definitely not blaming the economy[/QUOTE] :yes

JAPAN is 2nd biggest MUSIC MARKET.. so come on AYU!!!
IS NOT the economy.. is your album!!! you need to improve moreee.. :thud

But still sparkle rule!! :luv2

you obviously have no idea :rolleyes

Well it's nice to see she went up a tad. I doubt this album will even make it above 350k in the long run. The Japanese do NOT like this album from what I'm reading at other forums. Someone even said they put it in their yard sales "free box" It's disturbing to read O_O

If AYU have low sales its not a bad thing.
She gets really alot of her money from CONCERT SALE. Which is big always. AYU concerts doesnt decline. I think that FANS of AYU just want to see succeed in bigger way than "CD SALES"

YES!!!! Ayu is back on her #1 streak!!!!! but it rlly sux that sales are so low, it makes me sadness.....

Where are you reading this if I may ask?

The comments on Amazon.co.jp are really favorable actually. More so than they were for GUILTY...

lol honestly... i dont
so obviously i have to make that assumption

on another thread i asked how it got worse and i didn't receive an answer
so could you fill me in?

Uh, we really shouldn't be comparing Ayu's current album sales with her past album sales, because the context is simply completely different. Instead, we should be comparing NEXT LEVEL with the more recent releases such as Kuu's TRICK etc to determine whether or not she's doing okay. We already know that albums aren't selling as much as before not because Ayu has a significant decrease in fans or decline in popularity (okay, so if you compare her now to her 5 years ago, there WILL be a difference, but comparing the present to 1-2 years ago? Not so much), but rather, because of a hundred of other factors.

So relatively, Ayu IS actually doing rather well. The general artist doesn't sell nearly quite as much as Ayu does and just from that perspective I don't think there's anything to worry about. Not only that, Ayu's already secured her #1. Average sales of records within a particular market differs from period to period, so the only thing that will decide how well a certain record is doing is to compare it to the other releases at the time. And in this sort of comparison, Ayu really is doing quite well I believe.

The recession in Japan would obviously have an impact on CD sales. All records sell on an average less now and the recession in Japan is one contributing factor (but it obviously hasn't been the sole cause of the decline in sales.) I don't think the main factor contributing to many artists' decline in sales is the decrease in the number of fans, but rather, the amount of people who'd choose to actually get out to buy an album rather than just download it.

Today No 1 with 20, 167 in sales.

Woooow great great, much better than yesterday!