Hello,
Could you please explain where numbers for reputation in Germany came from? I tried looking for them but I wasn’t able to find anything. Thanks.

Hi Elias!

We apply weightings to Chinese downloads as we do for various compilations so it's just more convenient to put there here as our macros can deal with them. Since they are added back to final totals we don't think it's a big deal that they are listed there, especially since we name them explicitely so that people can add them back to pure sales if they want.

As for pre-sales, what do you mean by them? Historically pre-orders were orders from retailers to labels. Nowadays we read it more often for consumers purchases at sites like Amazon or iTunes. If that's the latter case, these units are added to each national charts when they are shipped so they are mostly counted on week 1.

Then, if it's about streams / downloads of singles issued before an album, yes, they get counted as well. We write down total streams for each song, no matter if they happened before or after the album release.

Hi Musiic!

It's just that the popularity of artists like Justin Bieber, Alan Walker and Maroon 5 are underestimated. The song Faded alone got 3 billion streams in China. Justin Bieber with no activity in years has nearly as many followers than Taylor Swift on QQ, and add in features his video views are close to be as strong as well. Maroon 5 have less star power than the others, but in terms of units amassed by their catalog, they can challenge them all. And then there is the period, Avril Lavigne at her peak was much bigger all over Asia than anyone has been since her. The popularity of Taylor Swift in China is extraordinary but that shouldn't discredit the one of others really.

Hi djdj!

You know that I know these numbers, I accounted for them all on our articles. When I say that there is near no physical market in China, it's because that is not the norm. There isn't a CD pressed for nearly all releases as it is the case elsewhere. There is some albums which sell well time to time, but it's a situation closer to the LP situation in western countries than to the standard CD release we know internationally.

Thank you for your answer MJD.

Popularity and star power are totally different things. According to that logic, lil nas x is bigger artist than Ariana and Taylor in USA. One huge hit with popularity doesn't make you biggest artist in country. This is the case for Alan Walker in China.
I don't think followers mean anything. Beyonce is fourth most followed artist on spotify but she is not the most popular in USA and her last albums didn't move good units. QQ music has more than 400 million users but only few millions follow people. General users only listens.
Taylor is third highest grossing artist in China, about to be second, competing with local Chinese artists. Second closest western artist has less than 1/5 of Taylor's(Eminem) gross. And he is pretty big in China.
About Avril, ı agree she was bigger at her peak like you said. But general star power is not only about peaks, consistency too. Outside of biggest music market of Asia(Japan), Avril sold about 2 million pure sales in her career(at bigger time of pure sales), Taylor sold 1.6 million pure. And it doesn't include impact of streaming. About Japan, pure sales declined so much. Last platinum album in Japan by western artist is Reputation ıf ı remember right, and looks like lover will be too. Avril has bigger peak but Taylor has bigger name in Asia general career, and ı believe biggest one from artists debuted this century(China too).

Hi TVL20!

I already answered this point in the past: the issue with features is that they are not equivalent. For example we often blame Rihanna for her features, but she is a fairly bad study case. She has a predominant role in most of her features, assigning their sales in full to her is quite natural. The debate makes more sense for pure feature artists who tend to really sing only a pair of sentences when the song is already ending.

During the 80s, featured artists weren't even credited. In the other side, we also call features songs that back then would have been called duets. Then there is features of 1 artist and features fo 4-5 singers.

That's why we simplified the problem by counting them all, to avoid getting into biased decisions / manual adjustements to define how relevant a featured artist is to a track. It isn't perfect but at least it's a consistent method.

Then another key point is that it looks like we are assigning 100% of units to featured artists. It's actually not true. It is close to be under current context, but for a song like Love The Way You Lie for example Eminem gets way more units than Rihanna, because he also have the share of units of Recovery fueled by the single, while Rihanna gains points only from singles formats. It does fit with consumers' behaviours: when they were convinced by Eminem, these are his sales, when they simply enjoy listening to the song of both artists, it's counted for both artists.

Hi Tre!

There is still a 8 million gap, it depends on how the album held in the long run, giving that Bodyguard too keeps climbing!

Hi Tobi!

Taylor has an insanely successful discography in the US, but we can't talk about a domination while mentioning only pure sales in our day and age. She isn't the best all-inclusive seller of the decade in the US, she is behind Drake, and if I'm not wrong (I haven't verified) her Billboard total sales for the decade are also topped by Adele in spite of her releasing only 2 albums. Being top 3 of a decade is already historic in itself in any case.

Hi Wlodi!

Through the years we have set a lot of formulas to extrapolate realistic estimates thanks to chart runs and year end charts which take into account the market size / how streams are converted into albums. Germany is one of the markets which is extrapolated that way.

Units RIAA with albums released this decade:

Drake - 20kk units (10 - 11kk pure sales)
Taylor - 26kk (18 - 19kk)
Adele - 25kk ( 21 - 22kk)

Hi TVL20!

RIAA certifications are always down to awards that have been requested. If You Are Reading This It's Too Late is over 3m SPS and remains 2xP, Scorpion remains Plat and is eligible for 4xP and More Life remains uncertified while eligible for 3xP. Plus, he stands at 21xP for this decade's releases, so eligible for 28xP in total.

Hi Musiic!

That popularity and star power are two different things is exactly my point. She has way more star power than Maroon 5 for example, but her catalog hasn't necessarily generated that much more equivalent album sales from China than them.

About Alan Walker, he is no one-hit wonder here. Even taking off Faded, his catalog streams are still in the multi-billions.

As for the gross, it doesn't mean all that much. This amount of gross is far from representing a large share of the current market. To release paid-for products remains a niche strategy, most artists go by streams and they can perfectly out-gross the ones selling their products. Looking at only 1 metric will never tell the truth about one market, it's always needed to add everything together.

Avril is no one-era wonder either in Asia. Girlfriend and its album was bigger than anything released by Taylor and that came after her peak with Let Go.

About Japan, from the top of my head I can think at least of The Greatest Showman and Bohemian Rhapsody which went Plat since reputation.

Ok but she's ahead Drake with certifications updated before the decade ends.

1989 - eligible for 10xP
rep - eligible for 4xP
Lover - eligible for 2xP before 2020

Total: 29xP

Well TVL20, I only looked at numbers during charts, if we want to be comprehensive, then Thank Me Later is likely eligible for 3xP (2.6m+ from sales and downloads alone) while it remains Plat, and I'm sure I missed more / one or two albums will be eligible for more by the end of the decade. Drake is the top seller of the decade in the US, that's quite certain.

I don't think so, it's a draw and with albums released last decade Taylor is ahead because TS and Fearless sold +1M this decade, each one (pure sales only).

Do you have numbers about Red/1989/reputation US shipments?
Why RIAA counts this element and club sales for the certifications?

Hi again TVL20!

There is really no match, Drake is ahead in total SPS units for albums issued this decade, and if we add the rest, then he has countless hit singles outside of his albums that did better combined than Taylor's and catalog units of her first records. This summer only he has got 2 Top 10 hits.

About certifications, they are the real thing. Labels / artists are paid on what they sell, and what they sell is their sales to retailers. Also Soundscan is very recent in comparison to certs, and then there is no Soundscan everywhere either. At the end of the day, if we want consistent figures based on the same methodology for all markets, only net shipments matter. Club sales are a part of them so they are naturally counted as well.

Numbers wrote inside the article are estimates for her US net shipments. They are slightly higher than Soundscan figures in part because there is the Karaoke versions included as well.

Hi MJD
What is your method for China equivalent albums sales? I don't find it true to take 1 small stream platform and multiple it to music market's overall percentage. Amazon and Apple results has huge difference example. We don't know streams of most of the platforms, and Taylor sold much more dijital dales there than Maroon 5. Their latest album is 3 platinum there example.

"Most artists go by streams and they can perfectly out-gross the ones selling their products." But even closest western act didn't gross %25 of Taylor's. If it was close or different case, ı could agree. But there is huge difference.

I didn't say Avril is one era wonder. I said she had bigger peak. But Taylor had bwttee consistency which is true. Taylor has bigger overall career in Asia.

Is Asia only includes China? He said China is one of the music markets does better but most of them does worse.

Music,

Exactly. Chinese market is not even nearly as big as Japan is today let alone 20 years ago. Sure Taylor is big in Asia. But she is big at a time when the market was ridiculously low and totally in contrast with Celine, Mariah. Cumulatively the asian markets are much smaller than it was 20 years ago during the time of Celine Dion and Mariah Carey. And its not just Asia. Even the US and Europe are not as big as it used to be. And Taylor was huge during the time of Downloads, a period where the market was brutally collapsing year after year. So it would be laughable to say that the market is in favor of Taylor Swift and unfair towards Celine Dion.

Hi Musiic!

The issue here is that you focus on statistics which are favorable to Taylor. For example, if we look at album sales and YouTube views only in the US, she would seem to be way, way bigger than Drake, but once we consider everything together the story is quite different. You say that Xiami is a small platform, the size of a platform isn't relevant to its representativeness. Check the most streamed artists / albums / songs there, they are indeed the hottest ones in China right now. Their audio streams are way more relevant than video streams of QQ precisely because they complete the jigsaw, rather than adding together only formats which belong to the same consumption process (like album sales and video views).

The example of the last Maroon 5 album is always brought over and over but it remains a very bad one. If you look at their 10 hottest videos on QQ, 0 come from Red Pill Blues, the top 3 (besides the new song Memories) are all V songs. If you look at QQ lists right now, Justin Bieber and Maroon 5 are both top 20 among the new songs list, in the top music videos ranking Alan Walker charts at 11, 12 and 14 with remixes of the same song while Ed Sheeran is #7 with South of the Border. In the popular index chart, Justin Bieber is at #2. Taylor Swift is nowhere to be seen in all these lists. Of course the point isn't to show she isn't doing well, just that we need to look at all metrics before drawing conclusions, not only the ones where her consumption is concentrated!

Taylor is doing well streaming wise lately. To think that just 2.5 years ago she was at 500M streams on Spotify to now garnering over 10B+ streams is really impressive. Maybe she's not as huge on streaming like Ed Sheeran, Post Malone, Drake, Shawn Mendes, Eminem, Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande and Rihanna but she's doing good, to be honest.

You nee to see the global picture. In August 2018 Drake was announced with 50 Billion streams across all platforms worldwide. Now, in January 2020, Universal reports that Taylor’s discography was streamed 54 Billion times across all platforms worldwide. So that means Taylor reached the 50 Billion mark in 2019. All but 5 songs are non features. Quiet an impressive feat if you ask me.

Billboard ranked Swift as second only behind Drake this decade. Adele is at 5. Swift outsold her in the US.

Hello! IFPI has Taylor Swift as the biggest artist of 2019 infront Billie, Ed, Ariana, etc. I think this is proof they fully counted China and aren't weighing it down. Do you think you will eventually do the same because if we take CSPC? I'm sure the top 10 of 2019 would be very different and I personally consider IFPI the most reputable organization in the music industry. Chears!

Chartmasters differs between western world audio streams (1500=1 album unit) and Chinese audio streams (10750=1 album units). While the IFPI weights every audio stream the same, regardless of how much revenue they may generate. Chinese album sales (3$) are factored by 0,5. The IFPI weights them 1.