Obviously no one knows what will happen in the future, so it's impossible to say. Many things could happen in the next 10-20 years, deaths, films, increased interest, decreased interest etc that could drastically change how current sales and streams of artists are.

If things were to stay relatively the same, you could easily see The Stones and Floyd pass her and possibly Eminem but he'd need to out sell/stream her each year, by around 3m to pass her in 20 years and by around 6m to pass her in 10.

Oh and if Eminem passed Madonna, he would become the 3rd best selling solo artist ever, not the 2nd.

Hi Jazz!

As Martin says, nobody knows the future. If everything remains the same, it's clear that the Stones will / already move(d) ahead of her. Pink Floyd will top her at some point as well.

Eminem has a shot to reach the all-time top 5 behind the Beatles, MJ, Elvis and Queen. He has far and away the largest organic pace of increase from the all-time top 40, and he is already #14, soon to be #13. There are still a lot of sales to catch, it will take time.

Also, Madonna's catalog has not been a strong ongoing catalog for very long. Everytime you think someone will move ahead of her thanks to catalog appeal, she does one more sales spike to gain some millions and secure her lead a few more years. And then again, and again. So while she seems poised to drop to 6, then 7, then lower, we can never leave her out of a race.

Interesting analysis. I guess we cant always count her out since she does have a habit of rebounding strongly everytime people thought her career is over.

Oh dear I forgot about Elvis, my bad. Lol.

first album already hit 10 million sales.

Hi MJD. Do you have an estimate for Madame X's sales? According to Mediattrafic the album did 500k units but this figure seems grossly inflated.

Please. Madame x?
Upgrade for albuns with streaming

Actually, 4 Falling into you, Let's Talk About Love, All the Way...a decade of song, and The Color Of My Love.

Do you guys have a link to the claim of her Italian sales of "the first album" (1983)?

Hello MJD, I have been following your page for a couple of years now and I have always wondered what were your exact estimations of Madonna's album sales in Asia, outside of Japan, like how much did each of her albums sell in Taiwan, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Hong Kong etc.

"Into The Groove" was released in Canada in 2 formats: Cass-single and 12". Sold 100k copies there as RPM clearly states on their 1986-07-26 issue (at the time had 40k from "Into The Groove" cassette singles made it the best selling cassette single in Canada so far). You can read the original issue PDF scaning that also have other interesting info about other artists here: https://web.archive.org/web/20210124041521/https://worldradiohistory.com/CANADA/RPM/80s/1986/RPM-1986-07-26.pdf

I'm sure it must be hard to find info about sales on most countries previous to the 00's decade as most was only printed on weekly magazines or internal industry reports and still aren't available to the public. Hope it helps.

Hi
In brazil
Like a virgin and like a prayer sell more than 800k and true blue sell more than 900k at 1993.
Souce newspaper Jornal do Brasil.
But magazine veja brings other nunber, i send to messenger too.
I send this photo in your messenger.

Sales in brazil at 1993
Source magazine veja

Mdna no sell more than hard candy in brasil.
Certificade coul be double because 2cd deluxe

Same rebel heart
Edition 1cd 31k
Edition 2cd 10k (x2: 20k)

Madame x
Universal refused release in cd, after complaint. Was release one mounth latrer, one edition 2cd with 3k copies. The price was 3x higher than the any other cd