They didn't. This list is sales from when they came out until now. So way more than 12 years. :)

I'm not sure how accurate this list is though, especially with no source. I'm pretty sure it was confirmed a few years ago that B'z was in the top 10 right behind Garth Brooks and now not even Garth are anywhere near the top either.

So I search for the source and I found the same list on an Enya forum and the source was from another forum then this forum credited and britney spears forum and yet another forum.

so this news might be just some kind of joke or whatever.. at the IFP page the only thing I found was an article on ayu winning the japanese record award for the second year and she sang her hit song dearest. lol

so... where is the real source?

ok....searched the site, there was a similar topic a while ago:
http://www.ahsforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32343

showing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_selling_music_artists this from wikipedia. sum1 changed the format of the lists tho.

46,000,000! WHOAAAA! :D

What is the number after the name (is it how many years they've been selling for), and what is the number in square brackets?

But this really makes me wonder how credible this is...Andy Lau shouldn't even be on the list. As well as some others who should be, and some others who shouldn't be.

Yeah but they released material during that 12 years. That's what I meant :yes

yay congrats Ayu!

thanks for the numbers

why is Yumi not considered in here?

Yumi Matsutoya / Yuming did not really sell that much. It was the amazing respect for her work and her status as the queen of jpop that made her succesful. Also, she wasn't a hype like many artists are now.

ah Ic thanks for clearing that up.

and **** hell!!! Modern Talking are supposed to have sold approx. 100mio. records???
thats like the cheapest trash pop ever produced and would mean every single person in germany owns at least one of their CD's...
this cant be true

That's good! She's outsold some famous artists.

yup tis pretty awesome! and it's only sales in Japan?

Also, as Annabelle pointed out, neither Mr. Children or Southern All Stars are on the list and it is a fact that they have sold more than Ayumi has - so the accuracy of this list? Who knows.

of course. they have no way of knowing her non-japanese sales. even if you but Japanese version through yesasia.com it won't be counted in these sales. So yea; it's amazing :D

i believe ayu has sold more than that

Hm.. I don't follow the charts closely but according to this thread she has indeed sold around 46,000 copies unless of course asongforxx hasn't copied this information from the same source as this one but I do not think so.

^since i had nothing to do, i added the numbers from the thread. n it came out to:
43,869,126

so i think the source for the chart is a bit off.

Well that's close. Maybe something else got added. I donno.

there are sales till 2000 only??? Bah...

^no they r from 1998-2006

That's really an amazing feat, considering how, although Japan has the world's 2nd largest record industry, it is such an incredibly limited market. This also makes me more intrigued by B'z. I've never really listened to them.