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By the way,I think Katy's Dark Horse has sold over 14m with ringtones.It had sold about 1.3m pure downloads in US in 2013,and I estimated at 2m with ringtones worldwide.In 2014,it had sold 13.2m with streams according to IFPI,but it didn't Include video streams and it had been streamed about 87m times on-demand audio streams in US according to Nielsen Soundscan,so I estimated at 200m worldwide.200m/100=2m(no.1 of 2014 Happy had been streamed similar times in that time,whatever videos streams(it just became worse since 2015)or audio streams,and it had sold 12m pure downloads by the end of 2014 in countries which have specific numbers according to Wiki).13.2m-2m≈11m.2m+11m=13m.It has sold over 500k in US since January 2015,I estimated at 1m worldwide.13m+1m=14m.
wait.I made amistake.IFPI units did Include video streams in 2014.I read 2015 Dightal Music Report again.But Dark Horse had been streamed 268m(181m video streams,87m audio streams) times and Happy had been streamed 230m(157m video streams,73m audio streams(Happy had more streams on Spotify worldwide)) times combined on-demand video and audio streams in US in 2014 according to Nielsen Soundscan,so These two singles still had similar streams in 2014.Happy had over 12m pure downloads in countries which have specific numbers by the end of 2014.I estimated at 13m worldwide.And it had sold less than 500k in US in 2013,so it must have sold over 12m pure in 2014.It had sold 13.9m with streams in 2014 according to IFPI,so track-equivalent streams must be less than 2m.Then Dark Horse 2.2m at most.
Wait.I made a mistake.IFPI units did include video streams in 2014.I read 2015 Dightal Music Report again.But according to Nielsen Soundscan,Dark Horse had been streamed 268m(181m video streams,87m audio streams) times and Happy had been streamed 230m(157m video streams,73m audio streams(Happy had much more streams on Spotify worldwide)) times combined on-demand video and audio streams in US in 2014,so I think these 2 singles still have similar streams in 2014 worldwide.Happy had sold over 12m pure downloads in countries which have specific numbers according to Wiki.I estimated it at 13m worldwide.It had sold less than 500k in US in 2013,so I think it must have sold over 12m pure with ringtones in 2014 worldwide.Happy had sold 13.9m with track-equivalent streams in 2014 according to IFPI,so track-equivalent strams must be less than 2m.So Dark Horse's track-equivalent streams must be 2.2m at most in 2014.
2m+(13.2m-2.2m)+1m＝14m.Still over 14m worldwide(I think it can be up to 15m).So Shake It Off's track-equivalent streams in 2014 might be around 800k-1m.7m+4m=11m.
Blank Space got no audio streams,but 1.1b views on youtube in 2015.In 2015,RIAA use 100 on-demand streams=1 track to get track-equivalent streams' numbers.1.1b/(11750/1500*100)≈1.4m.It had sold 9.2m in 2015 with streams according to IFPI,so 9.2m-1.4m=7.8m.It had sold about 2m downloads in US in 2014.I estimated it at 4m worldwide.4m+7.8m=11.8m.Plus sales since 2016,should be about 12m.
And Dark Horse overall
2013: about 1.3m in US,2m worldwide estimated
2014: 13.2m-1.9m(87m/43%/208(208 on-demand streams=1 track according to Billboard(HDD)+757m/(11750/1500*100)(I remember Billboard says 750 video streams=1 track))=11.3m
2015/2016/2017: about 600k in US,1.2m worldwide estimated
Total: 2m+12.3m+1.2m=14.5m
Just forget what I said...
Dark Horse overall:
2013: about 1.3m in US,2m worldwide estimated
2014: 13.2m(IFPI#02)-1.9m(87m(in US in 2014 according to Niesen Soundscan)/43%(converting to global numbers)/208(208 on-demand streams=1 track according to Billboard(HDD)+757m(YouTube)/(11750/1500*100)(I remember Billboard says 750 video streams=1 track,both similar numbers))=11.3m
2015/2016/2017: about 600k in US,1.2m worldwide estimated
Total: 2m+11.3m+1.2m=14.5m
In this way,
Shake It Off: 11m
Blank Space: 12m
(Roar: 13.5m)
So,in my opinion,you under-estimated too much...
Hi LMAO!
The thing is that your ratios are valid in the US but the IFPI has been very secretive about the ratio they use. It may be 750=1 just like it can be 500=1. Also, the 11,750 weighting was created by me and to get equivalent sales in albums only. For those reasons we can't really work out pure sales on the basis of IFPI data.
As for ringtones, we can't add relevant numbers for recent songs as they are dead for several years. Below is the annual number of rintones and downloads in the US in millions with the share of ringtones:
2005 421,6 363,3 53,7%
2006 773,8 580,6 57,1%
2007 880,8 801,6 52,4%
2008 816,3 1022,7 44,4%
2009 728,8 1220,3 37,4%
2010 526,7 1366,8 27,8%
2011 276,2 1522,4 15,4%
2012 166,9 1623,6 9,3%
2013 98 1567,6 5,9%
2014 66,3 1407,8 4,5%
2015 54,6 1226,9 4,3%
2016 40,1 906,8 4,2%
As you can see, when a song like 'Love Story' was hyped, ringtones were nearly as big as downloads. The song still sold only about a third of its downloads in ringtones as this later format is way, way more favorable to urban acts. From 2007 to 2013 they truly collapsed every year, selling 200k in 2008 is equivalent of selling 25k in 2013, so even 5-7 million sellers from 2013/2014 sold at best 100k-ish in downloads.
A third element which is misleading you is Wikipedia certifications. For example you mention that 'Happy' is over 12 million pure sales based on figures listed. The Swedish figure (160k) is almost only streams. Canadian and Australian certs (8/11xP) were awarded after the inclusion of streams too, same in Italy, Belgium etc. A good 20-40% of sales from all those awards were due to streaming. Plus, Happy was one hell of a seller in proportion just like Uptown Funk, the streaming share of a song like Dark Horse was definitely higher.
Behind every single estimated, I do go through every certification to dig out the real value from each market depending on when streaming was included and how the digital market of each of them was structured. After falling into the South Korean trap, I went deep into IFPI RIN numbers to check the size of download market from every country in order to make sure there is no miss. Figures posted in 2017 is highly reliable, apart from the early estimates from mid-2016 that had the SK flaw, you can rely on them in full.
When will you update Katy Perry?Wait for you.By the way,Katy had sold over 40m adjusted albums,125m tracks,had been streamed over 18b times and Prism had sold over 12.5m adjusted albums according to Capitol Reocords before Witness Era(February 2017)
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/katy-perry-honored-for-global-sales-of-40-million-adjusted-albums-and-125-million-tracks-300405963.html
I think Dark Horse should have sold over 11m with ringtones,Roar/Firework over 13m,
Hot n Cold/California Gurls over 12m(maybe over 11m if I over-estimated),I Kissed A Girl over 10m(1.18m ringtones in US alone in 2008 according to Nielsen Soundscan,200+k ringtones in Canada in 2008(?)certified,so it must have sold over 2m ringtones in my opinion)
