I will never understand how one artists sales affect the other.
If you like the music then that wont stop you from buying albums from two different
artists.

Top 3 is not bad for how long has ayu has been in the music industry, other artist don't
even make it to top 20. Some people get bored of an artist and stop buying the albums,
that will always happen.

on another note: I'm loving what I'm hearing so far in A ONE, I'm super excited for this album and
I'm happy that she's doing good in sales. Bad sales doesn't make bad music.

the fact that A ONE's
first day sales outsells CoLours's
mean a lot to me.
I just wish the album will
chart fairly long like Ayu's
previous albums..

Can anyone tell me
how many weeks did CoLours
stay on charts?

^But we don't know the first day sales of Colours because it was #5.
Or am I wrong ?

Colours charted 10 weeks.

Yeah it was #5 on the first day so we can't know.

That lack of promotion AT ALL really killed Colours.

Where did you grab these figures?

From the oricon threads that were made here since 2010, which most of them I created =)

They are accurate.

Fukuyama fans = older Japanese ladies (>35) with higher disposable income, and more interested in physical copies
Hamasaki = Younger fans, less disposable income, more interested in obtaining whatever is cheaper and more mobile (iTunes, Chaka-uta)

Fukuyama has always been a SALES KING anyways.

Oricon really needs to include digital sales to really be representative of what is sold, but instead they removed concert venue sales and Internet sales...wtf

I have mixed feelings about these sales. In my opinion, this album has really powerful songs. It is way better than her last records, but it seems that quality has nothing to do with sales anyway. There is a lack of new fans buying her stuff. Only old hardcore fans actually know when she releases something new. So good albums/songs just decrease the loss of old hardcore fans over time. Sadly, it is just a matter of time until her concert venues are getting smaller.

Just painful to see that sales are going down with every new album and single. I would rather see more up and down in sales from record to record than this straight way down.

^^Well, that was back in the 00's... Ayu's public is at least 25+ nowadays. Someone who was 10 during when she started is 27 now.

if ayu n avex can't b bothered about the sales, why shd we? ayu's greatness shdnt be measured by numbers on the chart anyway. there's just too much actual sales missing from oricon like sales from concert site, digital album sales, Teamayu versions. do they count mu-mo's total sales?

(how many of us did actually bought the Japan physical version lol)

How can anyone say sales aren't important. So an artist is fine with their music not being heard or heard by fewer listeners every year?? Fans that once supported her for years are leaving and it doesn't bother her?? When ayu at the cost of her left ear plus a broken knee pushed through just to please those same fans. Sales don't define quality but is freaking important.

@TriStar her concerts venues aren't getting smaller for now, but her tour dates are.

u didn't understand my msg....
looking the way avex n avex r behaving, the sales on oricon clearly doesnt reflect the real sales going on. though they seemed a bit more desperate now, going all out online through fb, utube n twitter. but if they're really concern abt the sales reflected on oricon, I believe more could be done.

That's because I wasn't replying to you.....

Mess.

I wonder how much ayu sold for the 3rd day...
Should be out soon.

Of course they care about sales, they wouldn't promote at all if they didn't care at all, but they aren't obsessed with keeping a #1 streak or breaking records.
Like for example Kumi keeps releasing her albums on the slowest weeks of the year to get #1, I don't think we will see that from Ayu, at least I hope we won't.

Ayu's popularity in digital sales got a great boost last year with ridiculous comeback of A BEST with its cheap price.
Ayu is currently #1 and #2 on Recochoku albums, A complete also jumped back up to #49.

http://i.imgur.com/GawTHLh.png

A company will invest less and less in an artist if they don't provide enough income to garner a profit. Of course sales are important because it means better opportunities and resources invested from within the company (to things like tours, etc.).

I mean, one could make the argument that the poor attention to proper mixing and less time/resources spent in fleshing out the layering in arrangements and compositions is because the company just doesn't see the benefit of spending the additional time/resources when sales just continue to decline regardless.

From a business standpoint, it just doesn't make sense. (Although it's kind a double edged sword cause how can they expect sales to pick up otherwise?)

It's funny how you always bring Kuu down or try to make her look desperate all the time. I agreed with you on some things earlier but I started noticing you have nothing positive to say about Kuu (besides liking her remixes) while everything Ayu does is alright. If anything Ayu/her team were the ones consistently obsessed with #1 singles and albums and always tried to find the best weeks possible for her from about the 90s up until 2013. Meanwhile in Kuu's peak she barely got any #1 singles and got the majority of them after her peak passed by luck.

Kuu has never been a priority for Avex like Ayu in the past or present. (a more fair comparison is Ayu vs Namie Amuro) If she gets #1 albums now it's pretty much because she got lucky. On the otherhand Avex has always tried to promote Ayu as much as possible and specifically found the best weeks for her to release her singles and albums in until about recently.

Fell down to Southern All Stars (last week's release) for the #3 spot. Ugh. :eviltongu

Seriously, outdated business. This is ridiculous. What's wrong with Oricon?

But, yeah, you also have to consider about this 'aging' Japanese population, and the fact that older Japanese ladies are more familiar with CDs than digital music compared to the younger fans such as the miwa fanbase, that may be a good reason why...

We're glad still that Ayu's dominant in the digital music charts, it's just that the Oricon physical charts are now more dominated with 'late-model' artists (such as Masaharu Fukuyama, Mr.Children, Southern All Stars and B'z) and idols (e.g. Johnny's, AKB48) for various reasons, such as more people would be interested in buying physical releases for 'late-model' artists, you usually can't find Johnny's releases on digital music outlets such as iTunes, and AKB48's handshake/general election tickets, all those reasons that make their releases #1...

...while Ayu - have to agree on that, could be younger fans as well (I'm actually a bit surprised :rolleyes).

I have no memory of trying to 'bring kuu down' all the time, I'm a fan of her after all, I wouldn't put lots of time into following her if I hated her immensely. I used Kumi as an example because her sales are close to ayu's, I could use AKB as an example with their thirst for #1 but they are a million selling idol group using handshake event tickets to boost sales, not exactly the best comparison.

I'm aware of Ayu's team trying to keep her #1 record for a long time, but I'm not talking about what happened years ago, I'm talking about her promotion and sales now. I'm sure they knew Colours and A One weren't getting #1 from the start, while rhythm zone/team kumi puts some effort into looking up when to release Kumi's albums. Kumi's team probably isn't putting effort into getting #1 singles because they know she sells more albums and concentrate on that.

I apologize if some things I've said have offended you, I may be a bit rude when I'm tired.