The truth about Britney Spears’ album sales in Oceania & Africa
Africa – South Africa
Music industry-wise, South Africa should not be regarded as an African market. In fact, it is an extension of the market from the UK as the huge majority of its sales come from British inhabitants of South Africa. From the early 90s CD sales were already challenging Cassette sales there. Which is a sign of an international-oriented industry rather than a local one.
There are many such indications, including which artists found success or not. For example, James Blunt had huge success with his debut album there while he is far from making black-oriented music.
Why do I mention that the South African market is similar to the one of the UK? Quite simply because it summarizes perfectly sales of Britney in that market. BOMT is the top seller. Oops was also rather big, but Britney was much weaker. In The Zone outsold its predecessor and then Greatest Hits sold as much as Oops… doesn’t that trajectory remind you of something?
The UK : South Africa ratio in terms of market size has been around 12:1 for a very long time, which is also perfectly visible in the case of Britney too. Those facts aren’t new – indeed, all South African sales are calculated with the formula UK sales *0,08 for a long time in all CSPC articles. There are adjustments if needed when additional data is known for the related artist.
Merging all the data together concludes on the following album sales to date:
- Baby One More Time – 125,000
- Oops!… I did It Again – 75,000
- Britney – 25,000
- In The Zone – 35,000
- Greatest Hits, My Prerogative – 75,000
- Blackout – 20,000
- Circus – 25,000
- The Singles Collection – 12,500