Looks like Ayu's reign as the highest-selling female artist in terms of CD sales has come to an end, unfortunately.
【オリコン】AKB48、音楽CD総売上5100万枚超え 女性歌手1位/歴代3位に浮上
http://www.oricon.co.jp/news/2096754/full/
AKB48's 49th single "#SukiNanda" sold 1,089,288 in in the week. It is their 36th #1 single and their 31st million seller (30th consecutive). But that's not the key takeaway.
The key takeaway is that with "#SukiNanda," AKB48 has now put themselves on top of the Oricon all-time female artist CD sales rankings, with nearly 51.3 million CDs sold throughout the 11 and a half years in existence. Ayu has 50,675,000, and her CD sales (if she ever releases more) are pretty much all but dead.
Oricon rankings: All-time CD sales ranking, female artists, top three- AKB48 - 51,298,000
- Ayumi Hamasaki - 50,675,000
- Yumi Matsutoya - 39,581,000
(Well, the bulk of the sales were on the first day, so Ayu's reign was already over just on the first day of #SukiNanda's release last week...)
(To be clear though Ayumi Hamasaki is one soloist while AKB48, as what someone said, is a revolving door of members. Ayu's still the highest-selling among not just female soloist but ANY soloist, since the only two artists that AKB48 are behind all-time considering all artists are two male groups - B'z and Mr.Children.)