The truth about Britney Spears’ album sales in Asia

EAST ASIA – SOUTH KOREA

A new country. A new set of information that requires a heavy amount of expertise to fully understand it. In the past, the Music Industry Association of Korea, known as MIAK, used to publish a monthly Top 20 list of top selling albums. Most countries base their rankings on retail sales, the same was believed to be true for those MIAK lists. It turned out they were based on shipments. Until 2003 no release to date total was displayed, which created a hole for some albums.

Baby One More Time was victim to this issue. It moved 77,000 units according to MIAK. However, this tally included only sales up to June 1999, as long as it was charting inside the monthly chart, and then 2001’s total as it made the year end chart. Shipments from July 1999 to December 2000 were consequently missing. Catalog sales aren’t a subject that really matters in South Korea since the market vanished completely a few years later. Thanks to those certifications from Britney.com, we know the album climbed all the way to  150,000 units during the months of missing sales.

Oops and Britney, both with known MIAK shipments well past 200,000 units, impressively boast past 300,000 overall sales up to date. Please note how the downgrade of certification units required for a Platinum award (from 30,000 to 15,000) enables us to have a very precise idea of their sales.

Merging all the data together concludes on the following total album sales to date:

• Baby One More Time – 155,000
• Oops!… I did It Again – 300,000
• Britney – 310,000
• In The Zone – 135,000
• Greatest Hits, My Prerogative – 95,000
• Blackout – 7,500
• *Circus – 15,000
• *The Singles Collection – N/A

*if someone saved detailed information about those two albums they are welcome.