Hi Minerva!

It seems a nerve was hit since you get into childish comments. Can't you speak as an adult, without getting into nonsense, putting fake claims in the mouth of others and filling in your message with deeply inaccurate data? Also, I would like a little more respect for people working here who together put 100+ hours per week of their free time to earn absolutely nothing (except a few insults from a child like you), so speaking about them as lazy people "lacking interest" is saying way more about you than us.

Then, you also speak about "bias". It's funny how people commenting on it are always the ones completely unable to post something without being biased themselves. I have read at least 20 times that garbage speech about China vs South Korea, always with the example of Taylor in a side and Beyonce in the other, suggesting I was stanning the later (funny how Beyoncé fans call me a hater of her, too). The thing is, sales from China has been held off for all artists, just like Korean downloads have been included for all artists. How can you even see bias there? Have you forget that Taylor, too, sold millions of downloads in SK? How has Love Story sold 12 million if not for Korean downloads? How has Speak Now, the song, moved past a million units without this market? Ah, no, only the Halo example matters to suggested I'm biased, right?

As for data, you can at least check what's widely available rather than talking garbage in the same post where you say people "lack interest" to search for valid info. You say that from 2009 to 2013, downloads accounted for "only 10% of the digital revenue" in SK. From 2009 to 2011, they represented not 10% but 43%-53%-48% year after year. It went down in 2012 but that still amounted for 16% of the revenue. In the same way, subscriptions haven't reach 75% of the market until 2013. Taking the time to search for accurate data, right?

Where have I said that downloads were expensive there? Yes, nowhere. In case you don't know, not as cheap as often claimed =/= expensive. It's obvious that downloads weren't $1 in this market, we only need to put head to head numbers of top sellers with the gross of the country (about $100 million per year in digital units in early 10s) to see that.

Then, you completely lose the point in everything gross-related. CSPC articles have never been made to reflect gross. If that was the case, freemium and premium streams wouldn't be counted on par, same for downloads and ringtones. What it reflects is the value of sales. If 1 million downloads sold at $0.1 reflect a strong success in a market that is worth $200 million, then it should be equally weighted with 1 million downloads sold at $0.7 which reflect a strong success in a market that is worth $200 million too. That downloads were 16% or 43% or 71% of SK digital market is actually completely irrelevant. What's relevant is that this DL data reflects a valuable market. There is no reason to expect Halo (or Love Story or Speak Now) to have been downloaded a lot but perform very poorly in subscription-based revenues. If SK is a bigger market than Australia and Canada, then the model should reflect that, a huge era in each market shouldn't give a much bigger number for latter markets. That is the meaning of CSPC.

To highlight your tremendous inconsistency with gross-related comments, why ain't you mad at ringtones being also counted on par with downloads while they were from 3.3 times to 5 times more expensive? Yes, because you can't care less about figures reflecting a total gross, what you care about is to inflate as much as possible Taylor's numbers. Since Beyoncé sold way more ringtones than Taylor this argument doesn't fits your wishes, so you better ignore it. You evidenced yourself saying "we..." while speaking about Taylor stans, clearly showing how biased you are. The simple fact that you call a model that is unified for all artists "bias" says a lot.

Claiming nobody used 1989's QQ number as a sales evidence is also another huge lie from you, internet was full of such claims 4 years ago and even the Wikipedia page of best selling albums in China was filled with QQ gross numbers. That nobody ever claimed yuans numbers were units sold is one more lie, even in the comments section of this site that you quote yourself it has been said countless of times.

As I said 297409275 times, Chinese data will be used once we can weight it appropriately. It will be done based on valid facts, not only about China but also similar sized markets, that a successful album there gets as many units as a successful album in another similar market. It won't be done based on wishful thinking / inflation desires of some fanbases yet.

How many downloads has Love Story sold in SK? There was no Gaon chart back then

Hi Dhhd!

Indeed no Gaon chart back then so we are down to estimates based on former IFPI numbers, popularity metrics from the likes YT plus ongoing catalog sales. For Love Story in SK this concludes in an estimate of 1,625,000 downloads!

Oh ok thanks. I never knew it was a common thing. Also can you explain to me how are physical sales counted and tracked? I know it might be a stupid question. But I just don't know how it works. Like how do they know exactly how much people bought it? Maybe they scan it when they bought it. But can't that be tampered with??

Also I wanted to ask you if you can do a Global heat map on Justing Bieber. Cause I was in an argument with a fellow swiftie that is convinced that Taylor is more global and popular than Justin. I feel like they're pretty similar but I think Justin edge her out a bit.

I think you underestimated her Asian sales.Some countries in Asia has certified her albums, though these certifications are already dated.I just list these certifications.
Fearless: 9 platinums in Philippines, 2p in Singapore, 4p in Indonesia, 2p in Malaysia, gold in Persian Gulf Area, 2p in Taiwan, 3p in HK.China has no certification, but it has shipped 100k in 2015 before the 1989 Tour Shanghai started.
1989:6p in Philippines, 3p in Singapore, 4p in Indonesia, 4p in Thailand, 4p in HK, 4p in Taiwan, 5p in China(10p now), 3p in India, 1p in South Korea, 1p in Malaysia.
Red: 2p in China(5p now), 2p in Taiwan, 2p in HK, 2p in Singapore, 2p in Indonesia, 2p in Thailand, 3p in Philippines, 1p in Sputh Korea, 1p in Malaysia.
Speak Now: 1p in South Korea, 1p in Malaysia, 1p in Taiwan, 2p in HK, 6p in Indonesia, 2p in Philippines, 1p in China(3p now).
Reputation: 5p in Philippines, 3p in Singapore, 3p in Indonesia, 2p in Taiwan, 2p in Thailand.In China, it has sold more than 100k copies of physical album on the online store and bookstores.
The digital album sales are huge in China when it comes Taylor Swift.Both 1989 and Reputation have sold more than 1.2million units.
I also find some countries sales are incorrect or absent.
1989 has certified 3 platinums + gold in Mexico, 3p in Brazil, gold in Colombia, gold in Venezuela, 3p in Austria, 2p in Poland, 6p in Ireland, gold in Czechia, gold in Hungary, gold in Denmark, gold in South Africa, which they didn't contain streaming , because these were certified before 2017. Red and Fearless also certified gold in South Africa.
Hope you could fix them, thank u.

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