The sales of A BALLADS

[immel]

The number that has been talked about concerning the sales of this album has always been around 1 million copies.

What, then, is this?
http://www.avex.co.jp/e_site/tansin/0305_ni.pdf

Ayumi Hamasaki "A BALLADS" units sold 1,710,000.

edit,
I noticed this is the total amount of copies that avex shipped out to their stores. It's still impressive, all those 1.7mil copies counts towards avexs profit, not only the 1,1 million sold copies if I'm not wrong.

The article also mentions that RAINBOW shipped over 2 million copies, while the sales of the album is slightly under 2mil, according to wikipedia.

[ohsixthirty]

where do the extra copies go? i mean...with a ballads thats like 600,000 extra. o_0

[immel]

They're in the stores I guess.

[norain]

Probably all sold out by now and the extra ones might possibly be in other outlets that sell the rest of the pressings.

[*Petit*]

When Ferry COrsten was palying in Norway I am... was mentioned in the article and supposed to have sold (more than) 4 million copies. By now I suppose it has, if one add up all overseas sales etc.

[immel]

^I doubt that, very highly. =/

The sales number seem most unlikely to me, and as long as there's no official mention from avex on the amount of shipped copies I'm not gonna trust any other numbers than the actual sales numbers from ORICON.

[*Petit*]

I don't kno how important overseas sales are , but her albums are constantly on the top hundred of yesasia.

[elepop]

I don't think the sales of "A BALLADS" passed a million copies yet.

If so, I'd like sources like ORICON.

[*Petit*]

I don't ever doubt oricon, but they aren't even covering the entire japanese market. It's the only trustable source though. Aren't they covering about 60% of the maket and then calculating the total using some kind of formula or something like that?

[ayu_fan929]

Originally Posted by *Petit*

I don't ever doubt oricon, but they aren't even covering the entire japanese market. It's the only trustable source though. Aren't they covering about 60% of the maket and then calculating the total using some kind of formula or something like that?

They use a weighted formula to account for all the sotres in Japan. For example if someone buys from large retailers like HMV or Tower, 1 copy might equal 5 copies to account for the stores that don't collect data for oricon.

By 2003 , Japan has more than 6,000 record shops. Oricon retail sales data are from point-of-sale cash registers collected weekly from about 2,800 retail stores and include non-traditional (on-line stores, convert venues …) outlets. So about 41% of record shop are tracked by Oricon. Soundscan (Oricon's equivalent in the US ) , gets retail sales data from about 14,000 retail stores ,which is likewise less than 50 % of total retail shops in USA . Data received is extrapolated (using a statistical formula) using weighted sample. Each retailer is given a weight, Biggest retailer may be given weight of 10 to 1 (meaning every 1 cd sold it will count as 10 units sold ) while most retailers have weights of 2 to 3 , very few 5 or more. This is done to compensate for the sales of retail stores not tracked. Sales report released by are weighted/adjusted to reflect what total retail sales would be if all retail stores was covered/tracked. Sondscan Japan retail sales data are collected from about 1,500 music retail stores

Oricon website provides Weekly sales data on the Top 30 selling Singles and Albums and Yearly Top 100 ranking for free. Internet subscribers to its website (who pay a fee ) gets sales data on Singles while sales is in the Top 200 chart and sales data on Albums while sales is in the Top 300 chart. You can get sales data outside the Top 200 Singles and or Top 300 Albums if you pay pay huge money to subscribe to Oricon for full market report. Because of the huge cost of a full market report , only record labels subscribe to it. Subscribers to full market report get weekly result every Monday

Oricon weekly chart dated (always Monday) 7/11/05 is posted on Oricon website on (always Wednesday) 7/6/05 .It covers sales from 6/27 (Monday) to 7/3 (Sunday ). New Singles / Albums are those released 6/29 (Wednesday--Almost all releases are on Wednesday) So first week sales information on Oricon covers first 5 days of sales only from 6/29 to 7/3 and not first 7 days . The succeeding weekly chart will start to cover 7 days of sales ( 7/4 to 7/10…… )

Actual last week of December sales is combined with the first week sales figure of January the following year in the weekly chart. For example Oricon chart dated 1/3/05 (posted on Oricon website on 12/29/04) covers sales from 12/20 to 12/26/04, the next Oricon weekly chart will be dated 1/17/05 (posted on Oricon website on 1/12/05) cover sales from 12/27/04 to 1/9/05 which is 2 weeks or 14 days instead of the usual 1 week or 7 day sales

creds: vp18 @ JPM

[immel]

^Thanks for the information, it was very interesting.

You can get sales data outside the Top 200 Singles and or Top 300 Albums if you pay pay huge money to subscribe to Oricon for full market report.

This means that avex probably has the complete sales of any album they've released up till now. I wish I was filthy rich, in that case I would subscribe .

[truehappiness]

avex'd probably be more right than Oricon in the sense of knowing whether or not sales have reached a certain point or not..

like in that new issue of ORICON STYLE, there was a chart listing each and every Ayu single release... however, the numbers were terribly exact. Were those at the point of 'when they fell out of the charts' or w/e? Do we know if Oricon even tracks record sales years after the release of a single? :/

[Mad_Cactuar]

^ oricon is the god of numbers, it records everthing, that's why it's so exact.. But I do believe A Ballads sold over a million now. Maybe it's like 1.05 million? It ended its stint at 900 000 something right? (M)U ended at a little more than 800k, now it's already 880 k..

[immel]

^Ended it's stint?

-sorry, language problems, my English suck at times-

[ayu_fan929]

Originally Posted by MC Tatsujin

^ oricon is the god of numbers, it records everthing, that's why it's so exact.. But I do believe A Ballads sold over a million now. Maybe it's like 1.05 million? It ended its stint at 900 000 something right? (M)U ended at a little more than 800k, now it's already 880 k..

A BALLADS ended with about 923k in like early 2004 or somewhere around that time. Any albums below top 300 sells less than ~500 copies/week. I doubt that A BALLADS can sell 77k in 2 years when sales for that album are less than 500 copies/week.

[immel]

^It's not possible it has dropped in & out of the charts without us noticing it?

Maybe not, I don't know how the sales charts look .

[Zeke.]

How could basically a "BEST" type album such as A BALLADS not hit 1 million? MY STORY did and that was after A BALLADS. I think A BALLADS is one of the most amazing albums ever!

[ayu_fan929]

Originally Posted by immel

^It's not possible it has dropped in & out of the charts without us noticing it?

Either way, I don't think it would've gone very far. I'll check some charts if it did later.

Originally Posted by anime_fanatic21

How could basically a "BEST" type album such as A BALLADS not hit 1 million? MY STORY did and that was after A BALLADS. I think A BALLADS is one of the most amazing albums ever!

A BALLADS was released like 2 years after A BEST and a couple of them were already featured on the original A BEST and were just remixes of them. imo, it's not really a BEST album.

A BALLADS is a BEST album?

Originally Posted by immel

^Ended it's stint?

-sorry, language problems, my English suck at times-

Look down a bit:

stint1 Audio pronunciation of "stint" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (stnt)
v. stint·ed, stint·ing, stints
v. tr.

1. To restrict or limit, as in amount or number; be sparing with.
2. Archaic. To cause to stop.


v. intr.

1. To subsist on a meager allowance; be frugal.
2. Archaic. To stop or desist.


n.

1. A length of time spent in a particular way: a two-year stint in the military.
2. A fixed amount or share of work allotted. See Synonyms at task.
3. A limitation or restriction: working without stint.

[Tasked]

A BALLADS is seen as a best album, but it really is just a remix album.. An extremely good-selling remix album at that =).. Anyway, A BALLADS has always been certified a million-seller by RIAJ. So it definitely shipped 1 million copies (quite soon after it's release). So 1.7 million copies shipped is not that impossible, especially if it's worldwide. But not all 1.7 million copies were sold, that's for sure.

A Ballads was promoted alot outside of Japan btw..