hi there. when do you think you will be able to include China stats? it will boost taylor's stats for sure. have a nice day.

Hi Xavier!

In most developed markets, physical sales are tracked using the bar code for many years. That is a very reliable system. It had some flaws in the past, for example in various places, including in the UK, some retailers system used to ignore the number of copies, it assumed 1 copy purchased when sending sales data. So if you bought 2 copies of Come On Over, one for you and one for your mother, 1 copy of Falling Into You and 1 copy of Nevermind, the system counted only 1 copy of each of these albums, effectively "losing" one sale of COO. These flaws were very minor and isolated though.

Justin is definitely huge WW. No global heatmap is scheduled on him, but the next article is going to show his skills in an unexpected area...

Hi George!

I'm not going to answer to each and every award since there is a lot of them, just going to say that they were all accounted for. You should keep in mind that although many are not as "well known" as RIAA awards, and thus often regarded as pure sales awards, virtually every country include streams right now. It's the case all over Asia, in Mexico, Brazil, etc. These awards do not reflect pure album sales. Also, criterias for many of them have change multiple times since levels were posted on online boards, namely UKmix, which may add some confusion. BTW, be aware all figures listed inside the article for pure sales are consistent with IFPI data.

If you have one specific example where you think that an album sold more in a market than listed, please point it out that we can clarify the numbers posted.

Hi John!

It's always the same issue when it comes to China. Some people are obsessed with adding Chinese sales to the model so that Taylor's numbers get a boost. That would bring highly biased figures. In fact, virtually all artists get EAS from China, 99% of them from streams, then rare cases thanks to sales. To add only sales would mean basically biasing the model against every international artist that is not Taylor. There is artists like Olly Murs that 'sold' tons of EAS units from streams in China and would be assigned 0 sale whatsoever. A model should work for all artists, no matter how they exploit their catalog, not only for a few ones. That's why Chinese sales are different than Korean downloads for example. Korean downloads do reflect the success of all foreign artists there. Chinese pure sales reflect only the success of Taylor.

The question isn't about adding these sales but instead 1) how to weight them to not inflate the real size of the countries' market 2) how to include streams too that the model works for all artists 3) how to update the Comprehensive streaming total formula to avoid double counting streams that are already extrapolated to account for China. All these 3 questions need to be answered to build a valid solution.

hi MJD. thanks for the fast response! I understand that it can be hard to fit China's figures in your data and formulas. I'm sure people who say they want China's sales included also would love to have China's streams included, especially taylor fans considering she is also the #1 most streamed female western artist for sure. Although qq doesn't give their streaming numbers, I think it's clear to anyone that her albums have more streams than other western female artists. Despite being released in 2010 and 2012, Speak Now and Red by taylor have more likes on qq than the latest albums of Rihanna, Ariana, Katy Perry, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, etc. On Xiami (the streaming app is not that popular here anymore but their streaming stats are public), Taylor has more streams than any western female artists too by alot. She also has 8+ times more streams than Olly Murs there too. Taylor is basically #1 in both sales and streams as far as I know. Maybe you have different stats though. Have a nice day again

also I just want to note that taylor's total streams are even more impressive considering she wasn't on streaming apps like xiami for a long time and yet she still ended up outstreaming all the other western female artists. just checked and she is the most followed western artist on that platform too (just like qq and all the rest). She has 45 times more followers than Olly Murs there and gets 5 to 10 times more daily streams than other western artists. it's a shame bigger companies than xiami don't really give their streaming data to the public but nothing makes me think it wouldn't benefit taylor just as much.

Oh thanks for giving me a detailed explanation.

It must be South America, right? But about when can we expect this new article?

Hi John!

Yes, my concern is to be fair for all artists, but I don't doubt that Taylor will be the one scoring the best EAS total out of all international artists in China no matter how the market is portrayed. I'm currently trying to set up a new model that welcomes not only China but all emerging markets since in a few years the picture of the global music industry will be completely different from what we used to know. Hopefully I'll come up with something in the next weeks 🙂

Hi Xavier!

Well, it's not about South America 🙂 the article will be online tomorrow and must be of truly high interest for all regular readers!

According to my estimations, "Love Story" has 6 million digital downloads and 3.5-3.8 million ringtones sold in the US. Correct me if I´m wrong please

That’s a spectacular crunch down of the sales of Taylor Swift, thank you. She surely in not THE best-selling artist of the decade, i got that. What really makes Taylor the artist of the decade for me is:

Earnings: According to Forbes, Taylor earned 622 Million $ this decade, makes her the highest earning artist of the decade, beating Beyonce by 25$ so far.
Touring: Taylor grossed 910 Million $ this decade, makes her the highest grossing solo artist of this decade
Awards: Taylor and Lady Gaga are the most awarded artists of the decade, but Taylors collection is more impressive
Record deal: Taylor signed a 200 Million $ deal with republic in 2018, the second highest record deal ever
Songwriting: Taylor is one of the most recognized female songwriters of all time
US Charts: Taylor will be named Billboards female artist of the decade, maby she can beat Drake for artist of the decade too
Charity work: Taylor is one of the most charitable celebrities of the decade
Covers: Taylor was on any major magazine cover multiple times this decade, including 3 covers on TIME magazine, the first female artist to archive this
Fan interaction: Taylor does not charge her fans for meet&greets (Beyonce 1500$, Lady Gaga charge 2000$), she has invited over 1000 fans to her private mansions for secret sessions and visited numerous fans at their homes.

Can you please tell me her ringtones sales in the US?

Hi @MJD
I know you're tired of the China questions. But I just wanted to ask you why is Taylor so huge in China??? Like I've heard several Chinese people tell me she's extremely huge there even her sales competes with other local Chinese artists. And when compared to other western acts she blows them out the water. Only Justin Bieber really competes with her. But I don't really know about his sales there because his albums are not for sale on streaming services as far as I know. I heard you mentioned that pure sales would only benefit Taylor the most but why is that?? Isn't every artist allowed to sell physicals??? And what do you think about her placement as overall as an all-time western artist in China??

Hi Xavier!

I know that some fanatics will again call me biased for saying that, but Taylor isn't that much bigger than remaining international stars in China as often suggested. The thing is that paid-for units made her success way more visible than the one of others, plus some of her fans as we can see here are more noisy than others. If we focus on her albums that weren't sold but streamed, see below a few numbers on Xiami streaming platform (only for streams from the album format):

Taylor Swift - 5.4 million
Fearless - 60 million
Speak Now - 48.6 million
Red - 100 million
(1989 - 34 million ; reputation - 37.7 million, both available with delay)

Below are numbers of Adele that nobody talks about because her albums weren't sold:

19 - 25.8 million
21 - 130 million
25 - 14.3 million

Also, top 3 tracks (without the album version) of both artists:

Blank Space - 14.3 million
Shake It Off - 11.3 million
Safe & Sound - 8.5 million

Hello - 49.7 million
Make You Feel My love - 20.2 million
Rolling In The Deep - 11.5 million

Bieber's Purpose has 120 million streams, Prism / Teenage Dream are at 70 and 80 million, My Everything and Fame/Fame Monster at 60 million, Good Girl Gone Bad, X, Divide are all over 40 million, etc. Then there is Maroon 5's V at 180 million. As you can notice, Taylor's super-much-bigger popularity than anyone else is kinda false. She is massive there no doubt, likely the top foreign performer which in itself is extraordinary, but just because very few foreign acts used the paid-for strategy doesn't others haven't done very well on their own.

What is true is that the Chinese market overall is much more hit or miss. Since it's clearly not a given to make it big there, some international acts that do not fit the market genre have way more limited performances. Beyoncé or P!nk for example are clearly on a lower league there. Even inside the discography of an artist like Adele or Ed Sheeran, you will see the big hits getting huge numbers but moderate international hits will be non-existent in China, because to start with they weren't strong enough to be promoted in China. It is where Taylor has an edge over most foreign stars, in her consistency of hitting great numbers through her catalog while many others got occasional hits and that's it.

As for "why Taylor" (or Maroon 5, or Bieber, etc), and not Beyoncé for example, China, like many Asian countries, is heavily pure pop-oriented in terms of music tastes. It's what drives them the most and in that category Taylor Swift is the biggest right now.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I really appreciate it. But I gotta say though I don't really know about Xiami. But I saw someone else said it's not really popular anymore. Yes, I understand that only a few foreign acts used the paid-for strategy but when looking at most of those acts you mentioned had their latest albums for sale. And none of them are even close to the sales of 1989 and Rep. It's not like her albums were cheaper or something almost all are the same 20Yuan. So what is keeping them back from outselling her? Ariana, Maroon 5, Ed Sheeran, Imagine Dragons and Katy are all pop. And all their latest albums has yet to even reach half of the sales of her albums. Especially looking at sales from QQ music, Netease, Kugou and Kuwo which are the main ones in China. Reputation sold 1,475.932 and 1989 did 1,418.335 so far. While you have Arianas TU, N doing 310,072/Ed Sheerans Divide doing 252,059/Maroon 5s V doing 252,217/Imagine dragons Evolve doing 355,967/Katy Perry's Witness doing 136,455. And Eminem's Kamikaze doing 433,279. Looking also on QQ music where she's one of the only artists on the platform to have 2 3xDIAMOND albums along with Li Yuchun. No western acts have surpassed even 1xDIAMOND on there. If you check QQ music hot sale this week Rep and 1989 are still in the top 5. Some acts might have big streams on those platforms which were driven by 1 or 2 hit songs. But when looking overall they fall behind a lot. Even Taylors social media engagements on those platforms show how much bigger she is.

"Taylor isn’t that much bigger than remaining international stars in China as often suggested." That is a blanket statement that you back with very little fact. Taylor is by far bigger than the remaining international artists in China. I don't think any Chinese would say otherwise. You use Xiami where Taylor is not as big (but still the biggest female artist) compared to her size on other music apps as your only reference.

Despite being the #1 seller, even on Xiami though, Taylor overall has 460% of Beyoncé's streams, 310% of Avril's streams, 280% of Ariana Grande's streams, 260% of Lady Gaga's streams, 202% of Katy Perry's streams, 184% of Rihanna's streams and 125% of Adele's streams. Also, it's completely irrelevant to only select streams from the album format. You say 1989 and reputation are respectively at 34M and 37M, but that's not actually representative at all. When we count streams from the album and single versions, 1989 is at 78.8M+ streams while reputation is at 42.5M+ despite both being delayed which heavily impacted their streaming numbers. Then you compare her numbers with Purpose but you fail to mention the VAST majority of Purpose's steams come from the album version (WDYM's single version has 1.3M streams compared to 11.3M for Shake It Off, Sorry has 852K compared to 14M for Blank Space) while more than half of 1989's streams come from the single versions. Same thing with Teenage Dream and Prism. Almost the entirety of their streams come from the album versions. Dark Horse's single version has around 500K streams, Roar has 2M. How is it accurate to compare strictly based on their album formats? Not to mention 1989 and reputation were both delayed, which is not the case for basically the rest of the albums mentioned.

Then you say her success is overrated because she uses a "paid-for strategy" while other international atrists don't do it as much. That again, is a blanket statement. Maroon 5's latest album was put for purchase only on QQ and yet stalled at 2x Platinum. Anti by Rihanna was put as purchase only on QQ and only recently became 3x Platinum. Ariana has been using the same strategy too with her last 3 albums being available for purchase only on QQ and yet they are respectively 'only' 2x Platinum, 1x Platinum and 2x Platinum. Ed did the same thing with Divide, which also stalled at 2x Platinum on QQ. Meanwhile, both 1989 and reputation managed to hit 3x Diamond and both are still constantly charting in the top 15 best-selling albums daily.

Taylor's "super-much-bigger" popularity in China is NOT kinda false, it's 100% real and verifiable. She is the most followed, most commented and best-selling international artist in China while also having more streams than almost any artist, local or international.

She's far from being my favorite artist but I've been going through China's stats lately and Taylor Swift is undoubtedly the biggest western artist there and by a lot I'd say. I'm really surprised you're suggesting she's not that bigger than others considering you put a lot of time looking up different statistics. Taylor dominates on every metric in China. She is a household name and has been for years. The numbers you gave (which are not accurate in Taylor's case) make it seem like she's on the same level as Justin Bieber, Gaga, Ariana, Katy on Xiami when in reality she outstreamed all of them easily despite her last 2 albums experiencing important delays on the app. Taylor is 100% bigger than all of them in that country. You seem to be holding a grudge again Taylor Swift fans lol.

No offense here but I think you are getting clueless with China's market. You only count Xiami meanwhile many sources proved that Tencent Music owns the biggest music streaming platform in China. Here's the latest report https://www.techinasia.com/chinas-massive-music-streaming-industry-differs-spotify

Tencent Music dominates more than 80% of China's market meanwhile Xiami barely at 2.71%. I just cannot at you trying to be this ignorant. The bias is real and too obvious. Now we want to see your explanation on this matter

Hi Samsas!

I'm sorry to see that you are getting into fanatical comments even though hardly surprised considering the tremendous lack of objectivity on your comments. This is just so obvious when you use artists (Beyoncé, Rihanna, etc) that are exactly the opposite of the successful genre I was describing and that belong to the "miss" part of the hit and miss situation in China. I also did point out that while most successful foreign artists in China (like Gaga, Katy or Adele) have most of the time got one (at most 2) big eras, Taylor has the edge by consistently doing very well for many years now. Then you go on with various cherry-picked examples of flop albums / not big artists there. Your fanatism is unabling you from reading comments correctly, and also getting you into answering with complete off topic trash.

It doesn't make sense to talk if you can't stick to constructive and meaningful statements. You basically show yourself that while Taylor is the leading foreign act (something I said myself), her numbers aren't in a different scale than the other big ones (even if you try to add 100% by saying "120% of Adele's streams" rather than 20% more), yet you conclude that "Taylor’s “super-much-bigger” popularity [...] is 100% real and verifiable.", how absurd is that? It's also funny to notice that you purposedly left out Maroon 5 since their total beats the one of Taylor. There is a trash section to move comments on and that's how your messages are looking to end with your childish "Taylor is the be-all of everything" type comments.

Hi Enrique!

May you read back my comment accurately and read what's stated rather than what you wrongly extrapolated?

Hi Music!

Rather than me being clueless about China it seems you are clueless about statistics. Do you know how many people are needed to accurately estimate upcoming votes in an election of 50-300 million people countries? 1000. Yes, only 1000. To believe that a platform which has billion of combined streams is meaningless is fanciful. As I stated a zillion times on plenty of different topics, streams are way more organic than sales, there is just so much volume that there is hardly place for outliers. If tomorrow we get streams of 0.01% Spotify users selected randomly, we would see have Drake as the most streamed artist of all with 100% certainty. Obviously, I would use the likes QQ and NetEase if numbers for all tracks were displayed, they simply aren't, in which case I'm fine with Xiami.

BTW, if you want accurate numbers about China's market, you would better go to index.iresearch.com.cn which shows month after month MAUs for both apps and laptops, rather than incomplete data as the one displayed on your link. One more advice, try to get valid facts when you want to tell someone else is "ignorant", rather than copy/pasting some rubbish from a fan board thinking you are delivering the truth.

You completely ignored most of my comment. Can't say I'm surprised. It seems that I have struck a nerve since you spent most of your time using your favorite redundant comebacks ("fanatics!!", "childish!", "trash!") instead of simply trying to debunk the claims that were being made. Very professional of you. Everything I said is based on objective numbers that you can look up easily.

Very ironic of you to say that I cherry-picked "flop albums" when I literally used the numbers of the artists that you mentioned yourself. Cherry-picking would be to point out one album or one single to demonstrate that Taylor is not "that much bigger" than other international artists (like you did by mentioning Purpose, Prism, Teenage Dream, My Everything, etc.) despite Taylor's overall discography outstreaming basically everyone of them with ease. I'm not the one who did that. You did. I simply reinstated the facts by mentioning that she has more streams than any international female artists on Xiami, which again, is a tiny, non-representative music application where Taylor delayed her 2 latest albums. Then you say that I showed my lack of objectivity comparing Taylor's stats with Beyoncé and Rihanna because they don't follow a "successful genre" as if I only used their stats in my comment. I literally compared Taylor's stats to almost every relevant western female artists there (Avril, Adele, Gaga, Ariana and Katy Perry as well), not just Beyoncé and Rihanna, so you saying that makes no sense whatsoever.

The problem here is that you act as if Xiami is the only way to measure popularity in China. That is the only thing that is completely absurd here. I didn't "purposely leave out" Maroon 5. I'd be more than glad to mention them. Despite only having 60% of Taylor's followers' count on Xiami, they have around 10M more streams than her. Congrats to them! One can only speculate that that lead would be non-existent if it wasn't for the delays with Taylor's albums, but then again we're talking about their overall popularity in China and Taylor completely dominates them on other music applications. Let's compare their latest albums on the different applications in China, shall we?

QQ Music:
15,438,000 yuans for Reputation
2,862,000 yuans for Red Pill Blues

NetEase:
12,698,000 yuans for Reputation
2,148,000 yuans for Red Pill Blues

Kugou Music:
1,826,000 yuans for Reputation
1,038,000 yuans for Red Pill Blues

Kuwo Music:
263,400 yuans for Reputation
38,400 yuans for Red Pill Blues

If you would stop simply brushing off everything that's been said to you by whining that we are fanatics while being so fixated on Xiami, perhaps you'd see that Taylor is indeed much bigger than Maroon 5 or any other western artist in China. Taylor moves way more units and has more followers across every single application; more on Xiami, more on QQ, more on NetEase, etc. Even on Weibo, the biggest social app in China, Taylor has 48 times more followers than Maroon 5.

You completely ignored the fact that Taylor's streaming stats on Xiami are distorted by the fact that streams are divided across different versions while comparing her stats to albums and singles that didn't quite experience the same treatment. You also completely ignored the fact that Taylor is far from being the only western artist who used what you called the "paid-for strategy" and yet none of them come even close to her level of commercial success when we compare their digital sales. You can continue trying to discredit my character instead of my arguments all you want, but it won't change the fact that numbers don't lie and the numbers are in Taylor's favor.

MJD , I mean it’s not really important who’s bigger. I just don’t understand why you are only using Xiami. Wouldn’t it be more objective to use all the apps combined seeing as we have the numbers readily available?

Like all 5 of the main apps instead of just one of the smaller ones. Normally you always strive for the most accurate data so I feel like taking a larger sample would be much better.

That doesn’t really make sense though. Because it would be more accurate with more data used. It’s the fundamental principle of statistics. Looking at 60% of data to estimate the rest is much better than looking at 5%. Sometimes polls are disastrously wrong because they have too small sample sizes.

You come up with formulas for everything else very easily. I don’t understand why it would be so much harder to web scrape and just incorporate all the main Chinese streaming services.

Reposting my comment since you're now deleting posts that state actual facts that you cannot disprove:

“I know that some fanatics will again call me biased for saying that, but Taylor isn’t that much bigger than remaining international stars in China as often suggested.”

This is… completely inaccurate. Even a non-stan would laugh at this. Please revisit whatever data you were looking at.

Deleting posts won't change the fact that your methods are questionable. You trying to lecture other people on not knowing "statistics" while you are literally basing the data of an entire market off of its smallest app is also very ironic. Instead of using data from all apps (as they are all readily available), you choose to ignore them all and use the smallest sample size of data. With data, it is always best to go with the largest sample to ensure accuracy. By zooming in on Xiami, an app that makes up only around 3-5% of China's streams (as stated by another user), and ignoring everything else... you are doing the complete opposite. Stop insulting and labeling every person that criticizes your data with objective points as "fanatics".

If your goal is to paint the most accurate picture with your blog, you should welcome comments that bring these gaps to your attention and improve upon them. Not shut them down, yell at them, and delete their posts.