I'm going with truehappiness that there aren't that many Ayumi fans (referring to the 200 mil estimate in the original post). There are many repeat buyers of Ayumi CD's (some members here have quite a few copies of the same single or album for various reasons). Also, you can't really tell the number of fans by how many you know. I mean, I know a ton of people who like non-mainstream bands but that doesn't mean the band sells millions, you know? But it would be fair to say that western artists have more fans than Ayumi purely because they have more exposure in general. For instance, there's no question in my mind that Michael Jackson has more fans.