Official Sales & Positions Thread III ~NEXT LEVEL~
 

www.oricon.co.jp

Note: Oricon doesn't use x1.7 or x1.75 indexes anymore, they post actual estimated sales.

1st Week


2nd Week


3rd Week


4th Week



5th Week

1st Day
Position: #5

2nd Day
Position: #10

3rd Day
Position: #17

4th Day
Position: #16

5th Day
Position: #16

Total Sales By Far: 332,787

uwhmmm.. almost 300K. hopefully tomorrow's chart make a hit total 300K

I think it will need 2 days for that, if we are unlucky 3 days

It might not have 350k till the end of the month. But I hope it will reach 350k. And avex reported sales would be probably around 500k, like it was with TRICK.
And hope USB will be counted soon.

^ I think tomorrow

The first encore press of the USB will be counted the day after tomorrow since tomorrow they are just going to ship them and tomorrow's charts will be showed on Wednesday.

Oh, I forgot about the encores! So well have 300k in 2 days, maybe 310k or 315k

^I doubt the USB will boost the sales that much.

good to know she can reach 300k

Do you think she will beat GUILTY?

^I doubt so. So the USB results will only be included on thurs? Is the encore version selling well? But anyway, tour is starting soon. So hopefully sales won't drop much next week :) Commences on the 11th right? Does anyone knows if the DBE movie had been shown in Japan yet?

It can't beat Guilty ! i believe that ! but if it can reach 400k , i think it'll be a success ^^ !

never can be happened

The first encore press will be added to tomorrow's sales and we will see it on Wednesday.
DBE started to air in Japan on March 15th. xD

It was released March 13th.

nice sales, she'll get back at No.1 as soon as the USB releases :yes

awwww, the second week was soooo close to 50k!

I hope so! I'm starting to doubt that she'll be able to outsell GUILTY!

You have too much faith in the USB sales. Sure, it sold it when it was first announced but that was because copies were limited and I'm sure the same goes for the encore releases.

i got the album today!! :D


im loving it ^^



thanks for the new thread!!

buy the album!! dont download!!! ;)

I hope tomorrow 300k it's a good job when ever

Ayu <3

The increase from 6th to 7th day is quite big. There's hope. :)

ガンバッテ！！

its plateau-ing...quite gd actually...
i hope it can continue this way

400k is A MUST!!!
c'mon japanese people...!!! buy it! buy it!

when are they going to add the usb? tomorrow right? :)

It should sell at least as much as Guilty, less than that feels quite sad. I don't know why Next Level is selling so badly (compared to her other albums Secret and Guilty). Maybe people are only spending on their favourite artistes these days and though ayu is someone many people are casual fans of, she is not their FAVOURITE. That's my theory...

I does have a chance of selling 400k :) The second week sales will be over 50k which is pretty good.

looks like the whole releasing NEXT LEVEL in 4 different editions didn't help sales that much as well which's really unfortunate :(

oh well at least it's another #1 for her in the bag so it doesn't matter so much to me

Album sales decrease more and more each year (sometimes each month/week), the standards for album sales should be lowered. The album is selling quite well for this era in time. I'm pleased with the sales, even if they read as low Ayu still accomplished another great album and another #1 album.

yep :yes

i'm not trying to compare ayu to anyone so i won't name any names, but one of my favorite japanese artists can't even break 100k with an album when she used to sell so much more and i find that sad, not these numbers at all.

these sales aren't bad at all, but i feel if the album was marketed differently it'd be much more successful. yes, there are 4 versions which helped boost sales since some people decided to buy more than one version, but there was really no bonus for purchasing the different editions. the covers only differed slightly, and 3 of them are basically the same with a slight head turn. they could have done a lot of integration with the different versions that allows the buyer to benefit from buying multiple versions (like they did with the MW promotion when they needed the boost)

and the first press? a different colored case? most of them looked terrible.

it would be nicer to see avex put more effort into the promotion for this album since ayumi really made avex into what it is today. it just seems like they don't care that much, which is a shame.

I don't really understand how good is to sell 4 albums to the same person... It sure can make her get the top positions on charts, but I would not like to now that about only 1/4 of her sales represents real people

It's hard to say that for even a CD that is released in just 1 edition since it's popular in japan (for mainly huge artists and boy bands I suppose) to buy 2 of the same CD (just 1 version released) since 1 is to be used and the other to stay on the shelve unopened in its case. Also a lot of people might buy more than just 2 of the same CD for random reasons. So I don't think that any x total sales, specially in japan can represent a number of x different people bought it.
It's really popular for 1 CD albums since they are cheap compared to other editions like CD+DVD etc.

Yay good sales!

hmmm i think 400k is possible, but im pullin for 500k. the USB will def get it over 300k tho tomorrow, and with such a sudden burst in sales, its bound to go back to #1.

We didn't know it was only 7k copies when it was released. Take a look at all of our hysteria when they so suddenly sold out at online stores (you can see heaps of "OMG!!!!" posts here on AHS ;) )

It's really hard to say how many copies were preordered but I'd say it's at least an extra 7k, maybe 14k because of the staggered release dates. If there were only a few hundred Encore's made they'd have released them all at once.

I do have faith in the Encore because it will be in addition to whatever sales are made on that day. Say she has a spike in tomorrow's sales to 12k units and another 7k copies of the USB are counted too. Great sales! :mischief

i wanna get the album

I agree. A lot of artists are doing that these days though. To me though, its scary to think how much lower these sales would be had it only been released in one or two versions.

That is a scary thought =/

well, fpr selling 290000 copies is not bad considering that they don't include the index anymore. She would have sold around 500000 copies by now if they had done that. But i'm not an expert when it comes to how oricon has been doing in previous years... :)

^ Including the index would meaning nothing. These are the actual sales now. She would not suddenly have a sales increase if they added an index, it would be the same numbers that Oricon is reporting now.

Yeah, I think people are misunderstanding what the index meant. It did not mean that her reported sales would be the same as now times an index. Her reported sales would have been lower than they are right now, and only after multiplying with the index would we get the numbers we have now...

500k is pretty much impossible. Breaking 400k is going to be an achievement for her with this album.

For all the people who are worried about these sales, do you remember the following artists?

Mai Kuraki
Chemistry
Orange Range

At some point in their careers, they've outsold Ayumi Hamasaki, single-wise and album-wise. I think Ayu is still doing very well for someone who's been around for a decade.

If there weren't four versions of this album, I would think the decrease in sales would be relatively low. Maybe the sales would be 20,000 less. I find it hard to believe that there are that many stupid, wasteful people who would buy more than two versions of an album, or even one. I think I'm being generous: 20,000 is already a lot of stupid.

To be more scientific about it, maybe there can be an AHS poll. Who bought more than one version of Next Level? And then just work out the statistics and ratios.

:yes
Breakin' 400k sales is very possible or reaching 350k is also possible.

And ORICON doesn't use the indexes anymore.

2nd week sales:

*1　DO YOU DREAMS COME TRUE?　DREAMS COME TRUE 82,873
*2　NEXT LEVEL　浜崎あゆみ 50,271

Total 2 weeks sales: 291,081

Exactly. If you buy more than one version, you must be very stupid. :irked (But w/e, it's your life)


Great sales Ayu!

yeah 50K on the 2nd week :D.


I think it's quite weird to put Mai and CHEMISTRY there (not saying it's totally wrong :P). When Mai was freakin' popular around 2000 (thanks to hikki), Ayu was just very popular, but not super popular compared to Mai. The hikki vs. ayu wasn't even started because at that point no one would stand against hikki at all (well it's true :)).

I dunno why I feel CHEMISTRY shouldn't be on the list. I know which albums you're talking about: Second to None vs. RAINBOW (yearly no. 1 and no. 2 respectively). Probly at that time ayu was still freakin' popular (2002), so I dun feel ayu was "defeated" by CHEMISTRY at all. Not to mention that ayu got yearly no. 1 single in 2002 (even tho StN and RAINBOW were counted as 2003 releases in oricon year).

Of course I know your main point is that those three artists/groups were once extremely popular and now they're so dull. tbh... Mai's music were even MUCH more "recycling" compared to ayu. It's so boring to hear the same tune over and over again. CHEMISTRY... well once Douchin was married the group suffered a lot. And I dunno why, but their music wasn't that appealing as well. For OR... I think they're doing their own things and dun really care about the sales anymore...

some people have the money to spend and it won't affect their lives in a negative way by purchasing more than one version so yeah. it doesn't mean they're stupid. stupid would be giving up food for a few weeks to buy more versions.. (lol i've seen a few people on here say that x_x)

thanks for the update babamon..
2nd week sales bit higher than estimated

3rd week first day sales:

#2 3,803 NEXT LEVEL　浜崎あゆみ

^Wow such a huge drop.

DCT sold 10,655, how did they sell so much?

I'm amazed by DCT sales! selling above 10,000 copies on a Mon is definitely consider a feat. i hope the usb will help in NEXT LEVEL sales tomorrow ^^ maybe 10-15K? *finger crossed* i just wish NEXT LEVEL will be able to reach the 400,000copies mark, cos this album deserved much better than that

Oh ! huge drop for her ! maybe it'll go up a bit tomorrow !~^ !

i hope mine to arrive soon ....

She went Shibuya today to promote Vivi Deji Deji at Tower Records, plus the encore version of USB to be included tml.. hopefully sales will be good tml :)

At least that's the first platinum done. Now about the second almost impossible platinum... Let's see how it goes.

What a drop.. I hope it picks up later.

Then a lot of people on this forum are stupid then by this definition. I don't buy multiple versions of albums either, but I wouldn't call people that do stupid. And yes, a high enough statistic of people must buy more than one album or else the record companies wouldn't bother making multiple versions for any artist to begin with - its at least enough people to make the record companies want to continue doing such strategies.

She is still in number 2 position...so it is ok...

Thanks so much for the sales updates.

Anyone knows what is quantity to sell to archieve the double platinum award?Maybe 300.000?

I think its 500.000

500000 for double platinum

Great sales!

i think this is quite good number of sales :)

Considering lots of people just download it, it's probably a good thing that some people are making up the numbers by buying multiples :yes

I don't think they'll do 4 versions again, probably stick to 2 or 3. This album is a real guinea pig to test success of the USB and to see if people will fork out the extra 400JPY to get the additional disc from the PCDL. Maybe in future there'll be only a 3 versions (I think the USB is unlikely to be repeated although it was popular!) - CD only, CD+DVD and 2CD+DVD cased as an ultra-limited edition.

People were mentioning in the past that the tour might raise sales, but I honestly don't expect the tour to be much help. I was just looking up info for the concert ticket thread and found out via the Yokohama Ticket company website, that for only I believe 8 dates of the concert, they already have 515 tickets available on the Tokyo resale market. Now, I have been buying Ayu tickets at resale shops in Tokyo since 2004 and never have I seen anywhere close to this amount of tickets available. You were usually lucky to find a handful and they would always be high priced. Now? Many tickets are already selling for only 5,000 yen (original ticket price is I believe 7,800) I remember when I went to the start of the miss understood tour, a few days before the show I was able to find a grand total of 2-3 tickets available. It's just like eye popping to see the difference now.

I know I'm usually mentioning that Ayu is losing popularity these days, but this even shocked me. I can't think of actually any artist I've ever seen with that many tickets on the resale market.

Then why did they add all those additional dates? Seems stupid to me.....

But on the other hand, it increases the chances of getting good seats - for normal prices. Might be a selfish thought, but for us foreign Ayu fans it might not be so bad. :D

What exactly does it mean to have them on resale? People didn't want them anymore? If that's the case, maybe it's because they have more important necessities to spend 7,800 yen on =P No offense Ayu <3.

Yes, it means that people once they got their tickets sold them to a store that then resells them back to the public for whatever the reason may have been. There are also a lot of people that just buy up a ton of tickets regardless of who the artist is, just for the sole purpose of selling them back to resale stores and trying to make a profit on them (similar to scalpers). The difference this time though is it seems the resale shops are having more trouble than usual selling them back out to the public.

Oh, oh well! That's seats for a better price for more people I guess.

^ That's the positive way of looking at it, yes. :)

Gotta keep your head up these days hon :)

next level is doing pretty well :) although I didn't liek it too much lol. I did liek a few songs but they didn't stand out too much except days, but i bought the single already LOL XD. I would've gottten it if I wasn't so poor atm lol. USB was a beauty.

3rd week 2nd day:

*1　20,984　湘南乃风
*2　11,562　松任谷由実
*3　*8,748　DREAMS COME TRUE
*4　浜崎あゆみ

!! No figures today..

^

Hmmm...So the Encore Press USB Sticks didn't help...

true

10 years ago record labels wouldn't be doing this at all but because each year physical CD sales are dropping , they have no choice but to step in to do such a thing

it's not that they want to do that anyway but they have no choice of sorts

I think the usb chart will be appeared tomorrow not today right?

Ack! Hope they come out soon o__o I want to know how many were sold!!

Well people already paid money for those tickets already...they're just selling it back with no intention of going in the first place.

I just read a while ago that many labels (or who ever is in charge of selling the tickets) have lately been doing that a lot to their own artists' tickets. But avex wouldn't be that stupid to put over 500 tickets for reselling this close to the concert, and with a smaller price? I just thought I would mention, one possibility could be that they (avex) did that to their concert tickets but then people weren't interested in buying the tickets anymore with higher prices after they were announced sold out and their (avex's) plan failed.....

Well okay I doubt that. But it makes me sad that so many people weren't/aren't going there, even though I didn't like NL it kinda feels bad when it seems she is losing her popularity (also in terms of sales).

Hmmm, well, I still wouldn't look at it in a high popularity/low popularity way, in order to explain why so many of Ayu's tickets are going on resale. If you think about it, quite a few fans may have used to go to more than one concert date for each tour, and with less money in their pockets this year, it might just be more economic to go to one date. The other tickets would then probably go to buyers who buy tickets with no intention of attending the concert but only to put it on resale for more money. That situation is probably more apparent this year.

Sooooo you'll have more Team Ayu tickets floating around? :D

even that i feel sorry for the sales of this album so far

we all know that this wont stop ayu at all! :D


I'm sure shes fine and happy and getting ready for the concert!


:D

It's quite a pity, but maybe tomorrow's sales will be a surprise too!

How weak.. If NL wont sell better than GUILTY.. Bad..

@SunshineSlayer:
Why adding additional dates if people don't want to see the concert? The thing that just might be is that there are so many tickets available at re-seller's due to the additional tour dates. As I believe this is the first Ayu tour that had this many shows. Now I know that many fans see the show more than 2 times and all. I am pretty sure AVEX people know what they're doing :) The simple fact that they've added DOME concerts to DBSK's tour pretty much says everything.

It seems that every topic leads to the talk about Ayu loosing popularity, I mean that's pretty obvious and it has been said many times, there is no need to keep proving it &/or repeating it, as I am sure everyone here knows it. The album isn't going to outsell GUILTY obviously.

Mine hasn't even shipped yet and I know I'm in the first batch, so I don't think they were counted today.

I'm trying to get in that mood. I know ayu is professional enough not to let the sales affect her performance and future work. At the same time, i can't help feeling a little sad for the sales. Next Level does not seem to be going places, despite it's title.

I hope it hits the top 3 in the 3rd week too! 400k is a must

Yeah.. USB hasn't been shipped yet... i'm quite worried because my USB in YA says "searching from suppliers" and I ordered the USB EP the 26/02... just when they where announced... ¬¬

Okay now a stupid question: Why there isn't any sales figures announced for NL today? :doh

cos its out of 3, u must wait til week sales will be out ^^

Right, Avex doesn't care how many tickets end up on the resale market because they already got paid for them - that is why they would still add more dates. What this could effect is future sales - people will be less likely to buy so many tickets because the resale shops will be less inclined to pay premium prices for tickets that they don't know will sell well or not.

For those that want to check for themselves (also a great resource if you are planning to go to her tour this year), go here: http://www.yokohamaticket.co.jp/ticket/ticket-music.cgi
The drop down list has every artist that is currently on tour and what tickets are available in 3 of the 4 major Tokyo resale stores. Ayumi is now up to 530 actually. The artist with the second greatest number of tickets available from what I can see is Dreams Come True with 212 - but still there is a huge gap between 212 and 530, also their tickets are so far still going for 10,000+ yen, Ayu on the other hand has some of her tickets dipping to 4,500 now and you can get A-Block tickets(front) for waaay cheaper than they have ever been. Usually by this point you would be lucky to find a handful of tickets for the 4/11 show, not literally 100+. Very strange thing for Ayu's tickets right now that I can't remember ever seeing before. The AT08 tickets were getting easier to find last year, but still not to this level.

I don't know if this is strictly an economy thing either because none of the other artists that are comparable to Ayu seem to be having this problem. Namie for example has a grand total of 37 tickets available for 5 dates at Yoyogi. (When I went to Best Fiction in Feb. I was only able to find a small amount of tickets then as well) Even Hello Project tickets, which are usually the king's of the resale market, are doing way better. So, yeah, something is up with Ayu's concert sales this time around.

The good news is at least people on this forum that are planning to go, don't need to worry about buying tickets online for insane prices.

njanjayrp: I'm not meaning here to just point out Ayu is losing popularity, just stating the facts of what I surprisingly found out when I went looking for tickets myself. This is such an odd occurrence that I don't see how it can be passed up for discussion.

Oh right! I didn't realize, when I went to Oricon I just looked at Ayu's and #1-#3 sales and didn't check the ones after her xD Thanks n_n

Im not familiar with the ticket resale market in Japan, so please excuse me, but if there only approx. 500 tickets left for a huge arena how is that a terrible thing? Are Ayu's concerts generally sold out events?

Well I think that we are all aware that there will prolly be a point in the future where Ayu's concerts will have less tour date if the demand isn't high enough. The fact that her album sales have declined pretty much explains it all, so I can't really agree that it's odd. Look at BoA's sales and what her tour have become and for example Hitomi Shimatani who now barely has 2 tour dates with less than 2k people attending each show.

I hope that she never gets in Shimatani's level of popularity! :O

and 500 tickets on 9 dates on big arenas isn't that much... it's like 60+- tickets per date... Madonna had that huge tour last years that break the record for the most money gained on a solo singer tour... and some of her dates at the USA were half empty...

Actually it is a lot. As I've stated (and anyone that has ever been to Japanese ticket resale shops can tell you) this is an incredibly high number of available tickets. Especially for Ayu. It used to actually be a bit of a challenge to get her tickets from resale stores or if you did find them, there wouldn't be much selection available. Right at this moment you can go into one of the shops and see literally hundreds - that is unprecedented for Ayu. I've only ever seen that for Hello Project, and even then, not to this extent.

Madonna as well you have to keep in mind that she is playing venues whose capacities are not comparable to Ayumi. In 2001/2002 you could say their venue capacity was comparable.

I say that it is odd because Ayu's album and single sales have been declining for a long time, but it didn't really seem to affect her concert sales. But now the concert sales might actually be starting to catch up.

Ayu's last year concert had 26 dates in Japan (and it was longer than her usual tours), this year tour have 35 dates... if all this tickets that are in the resale shops were from the same concert date (I know they aren't), Ayu would have 34 dates with full audience and one day with 2/3 audience... and she is having 9 more dates than last year^^ So, I don't think this is bad, she is only having one concert more than she can affort...

Not all the tickets for the dates have been released yet, as I mentioned, these 500+ tickets are for only 9 dates so far. If it stays at this pace, several thousand tickets will have gone through the resale shops by tour end. My main point though is that the resale shops are a good indicator of how in demand an artist is. If they are in demand, you don't see too many tickets show up at the resale shops and when they do, they are gone by the end of that day. That is how it usually is with Ayumi. Never before has she had so many tickets just sitting there and not only that, being sold for way less than they used to be.