HTDAAB SALES Predictions - end of 2005

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zoo tv mcg

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Here's some food for thought - be interested in Dr Who's & Sting2 projections on this. These are sales, not shipment numbers fyi

US Sales- current - 1.4m will be near 2m by new years eve. Now given there are 2 tours (Spring and Fall) and 4 singles to keep sales ticking over. I think worst case the album will sell approx 40k per week (Dr Who - what average chart position would this represent). Multiply 40k x 52 weeks = approx 2m in 2005 which is a very conservative number. Result 4x platinum plus the 06 Grammys etc.. to come. To sell 3m copies in 05 and get to 5x platinum, it will have to sell approx 60k per week (again what average chart position is this - can we use some guidance from ATYCLB). We also have seasonal variations such as Christmas to take into account. I am pretty confident that by the 06 Grammy's the record will be 5x platinum

U.K sales will be 1.5m -2m at the current rate and Europe sales in total will be approx 6m. Add the ROW (say another 3m) and the album will be 13-14m by the end of 05 and clearly ahead of ATYCLB.
 
zoo tv mcg said:
Here's some food for thought - be interested in Dr Who's & Sting2 projections on this. These are sales, not shipment numbers fyi

US Sales- current - 1.4m will be near 2m by new years eve. Now given there are 2 tours (Spring and Fall) and 4 singles to keep sales ticking over. I think worst case the album will sell approx 40k per week (Dr Who - what average chart position would this represent). Multiply 40k x 52 weeks = approx 2m in 2005 which is a very conservative number. Result 4x platinum plus the 06 Grammys etc.. to come. To sell 3m copies in 05 and get to 5x platinum, it will have to sell approx 60k per week (again what average chart position is this - can we use some guidance from ATYCLB). We also have seasonal variations such as Christmas to take into account. I am pretty confident that by the 06 Grammy's the record will be 5x platinum

U.K sales will be 1.5m -2m at the current rate and Europe sales in total will be approx 6m. Add the ROW (say another 3m) and the album will be 13-14m by the end of 05 and clearly ahead of ATYCLB.

My prediction for "BOMB"s first 6 weeks after seeing figures for the first two weeks.

840,000 + 288,000 + 190,000 + 250,000 + 410,000 + 165,000

Actual results for "Bomb" so far:

840,000 + 288,000 + 280,000

TOTAL after 3 weeks in the USA: 1,408,000

Obviously, "Bomb" is going to sell 280,000+ this coming week which is well ahead of my old prediction of 250,000 for that week.

I predict by the end of Sunday, January 2, 2005, that the "Bomb" will have sold a total of 2.3 million copies. Of course, if my old prediction were to turn out correct at this point, then we would see around 2.2 million in total sales. I hope I'm underestimating in either case and we see 2.6 million in sales by January 2, BUT I'll go with the 2.3 million number as my best guess. This is of course for the United States only.

Its to early for me to predict sales worldwide by the time 2006 roles around. But I believe this album will outsell ATYCLB. ATYCLB is getting beat by large margin comparitvely in both the USA and UK just comparing the first 3 weeks of BOMB with ATYCLB first three weeks.
 
After hearing this album once I thought it would outsell ATYCLB by at least 3 million copies which would put the total at around 15 million not bad for a band in their 40s that a lot of people seem to hate with a passion.
 
I predict worldwide sales of 15 million by end 2005 -6 milion in the US, 6 million in Europe (2 million of those in the UK).


Mike
 
I'm sure it will outsell ATYCLB. I think it will reach the sales figures from ATYCLB at the 2006 Grammys at last. And if U2 get the Grammy for the record of the year, then I predict a possible sale at 18 million at all!
 
Things like the Grammies and Super Bowl gave ATYCLB second and third "winds" (or boosts) up the charts - especially in 2002. The 9/11 disaster also had the effect of boosting U2 as people wanted to hear that type of music.

I pray there's not another 9/11. And I have no idea if U2 will have the Grammy abundances ATYCLB. "Beautiful Day" won 3 Grammies alone - and two were for the most prestigious awards a song can get (Record and Song of the Year). Already "Vertigo" is at a disadvantage as it wasn't even nominated for those categories. The top category for "Vetigo" is "Rock Song of the Year". As such, I highly doubt we'll see U2 perform at the ceremony in 2005. If they do, I can almost guarantee at least one award for them for the night. Still, the "Rock Song" award isn't even televised! Plus, U2 are against some VERY strong competition - I think this might be a year for Green Day to have some big wins (at least in the Rock category if nothing else). Therefore, I don't foresee any Grammy boost in 2005 (nor any U2 wins).

Will U2 win in 2006? Way too early to tell - we have a lot of albums that can come out in 2005 that can blow U2 out of the running (something analogous to Santana's "comeback" album, for example, that happened a few years back). Will U2 perform at the Super Bowl? I'm sure the NFL wouldn't mind, but I don't see U2 doing that again (could be wrong, but...).

So the album will have to rely on singles and the tour. U2 need to have several Top 40 hits from this album in order to achieve or surpass the level of sales of ATYCLB in the U.S. "Vertigo" is a great start and the album is obviously outpacing ATYCLB by a significant margin. The question now is if it can be sustained throughout 2005.

Selling 40K a week will chart the album somewhere in the 20's, generally speaking, on Billboard. But to keep up those sales, we need "All Because of You" and "Sometimes...." to crack the Top 40. If they are able to crack the Top 20, then I can see HTDAAB beating ATYCLB.

As of this moment, I'm predicting sales of 3.5-4.5M. Too many unknowns to pin down further.
 
Here are the sales of ATYCLB and HTDAAB after 3 weeks of release in the United States:

ATYCLB: 723,000

HTDAAB: 1,412,000


Even if HTDAAB does not have as much of the longterm success of ATYCLB, I think it is going to outsell it here in the USA because of the massive sales it is currently having. HTDAAB will likely be certified triple platinum in January!

In the United Kingdom, HTDAAB will likely overtake ATYCLB total sales to date in the United Kingdom by the end of January!
 
But sometimes strong beginnings do not mean strong legs. This happens a lot in the movie business. Even "Pop" debuted at #1 and slipped slightly to #2 the next week and we all know what happened thereafter.

As such, perhaps I'm being overly cautious, but I am reluctant to predict huge sales just yet. Double Platinum in actual sales is a gimme - it should happen by the end of the holiday sales. 3x Platinum in actual sales should occur because of sustained sales early on and the tour. But for HTDAAB to reach 4x Platinum, it'll need some big boosts along the way - something like Grammy wins, Super Bowl appearances or another ubiquitous ad campaign - something that makes people notice U2 again and perhaps buy an album they originally passed on now.
 
I think there is many people out there that will pass on U2 records no matter how much they see them unless they go see them live on a whim because after that people usually generally get hooked on the band....ad campaigns are nice but nothing like seeing the band live.
 
Everyone seems to forget that next year the will be getting the boost most bands only dream of... The Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame induction! Big news there
 
I just think U2 have a stronger popularity amongst the general population at the minute than with the last album..and this will continue to be evidenced with stronger sales week by week in the UK and US.
 
The band are currently getting media coverage because of the selling power of this album after only 3 weeks. That creates a buzz factor that the band did not have starting out with ATYCLB. By the two month mark, this album could very close to the 3 million mark. Sales are not suddenly going to stop at that point. If the album sales 3 million to consumers by the end of January, the band could easily sell another million over the next year without any major unusual media events, Grammy's, Football or BasketBall Games etc.

But, as it is, the band will be having a major promotion campaign in addition to more singles and a huge tour. Based on what we have seen 3 weeks out, the fastest selling album in U2's history, one has to conclude that anything is possible. The album is well ahead of where Joshua Tree was at this point.

Also, I just realized another point. Soundscan even today is not at 100% in terms of tracking all sales. At best its at 95%. That means that album sales to consumers in the first 3 weeks have likely been 1,500,000 instead of 1,408,000.

I think Miracle Drug could be U2's first top 10 airplay song since "One". It is the most popular song on the album among fans that already have it(interference has its own poll that shows that) and I think its one of the 10 best songs U2 have ever recorded in their history and I think that radio that would normally not play U2 will play it, its that good of a song.

More importantly, lets remember all of our predictions prior to the first week. I was one of the few people that said 600,000, everyone else was thinking 400,000 to 500,000 on average. It turns out all of my predictions so far have been severe underestimates as well as everyone elses.
 
STING2 said:
The band are currently getting media coverage because of the selling power of this album after only 3 weeks. That creates a buzz factor that the band did not have starting out with ATYCLB. By the two month mark, this album could very close to the 3 million mark. Sales are not suddenly going to stop at that point.

Clearly the album won't stop after January, but I am very hesitant to say that it'll even hit 3M by that time. IMO, you always over-predict and I under-predict, so perhaps it'll be a happy medium in between. ;) The rush factor of the first week was great, but we saw that huge second week drop. That is a warning sign. Sure, sales were sustained in week 3, but we have the holiday season upon us. So the question now is after the holidays are over, will HTDAAB still be selling 50-100K copies a week for a sustained period? It can, but it needs additional pushing with a few more hit singles. But if the songs fail to crack the Top 40, as what happened with ATYCLB (barring BD), then I'm not so sure HTDAAB will reach that 4M mark.

Also, I just realized another point. Soundscan even today is not at 100% in terms of tracking all sales. At best its at 95%. That means that album sales to consumers in the first 3 weeks have likely been 1,500,000 instead of 1,408,000.


You and I have also disagreed on this point. I believe they get the numbers and then extrapolate for the rest of the country. Here is what Billboard has said:
All of our sales charts are based on data provided to us by Nielsen SoundScan, and Nielsen SoundScan has been in business since 1991 and they use the actual point of sale systems that retailers themselves use to track inventory. It's not like a separate system where when you make a purchase the cashier has to remember to scan something twice, it takes the actual information from the cash register and from that we have a universe that represents more than 90 percent of the US retail marketplace. You can be very comfortable about predicting national numbers to not only report what happened within the panel but what the actual overall sales would have been if you had the other remainder of the marketplace reporting.

Based on that quote, they gather >90% of the actual sales data. Then then use those numbers to PREDICT national numbers. Hence, the rounding up has already occurred. There won't be additional rounding up as you speculate.

I think Miracle Drug could be U2's first top 10 airplay song since "One".


Sorry, I disagree. It's popular amonst U2 fans, but I don't see it being popular at all on the charts. At best, it might break the top 60 - I see a "Stuck..." type performance out of it. I don't recommend its release unless it's a 5th or 6th single.

More importantly, lets remember all of our predictions prior to the first week. I was one of the few people that said 600,000, everyone else was thinking 400,000 to 500,000 on average. It turns out all of my predictions so far have been severe underestimates as well as everyone elses.

True, I was one thinking ATYCLB type numbers. However, the week the album was released, I sensed a buzz I didn't get before then - it was clear this album would open huge.

Still, I want to see the sales for the first few weeks in January before I stick to a prediction. Again, I site the huge second week drop. While the sales were great that week, that drop is a concern. So I need to see what happens after the holidays to be convinced if HTDAAB will be huge (4M or more).
 
These are the latest soundscan figures for "Atomic Bomb"

Soundscan sales this week: 280,332 (3rd Week)
Total so far: 1.411,708

If the soundscan total was extrapolated to arrive at what would be 100% of the market, an exact figure of 280,332 would not be reported. Rather it would be a rounded figure, because any such figure would still be an estimate. While its true that one can say with good confidence what the number at 100% would be, soundscan reports precise figures that are not rounded and represent precisely what was scanned and does not attempt to estimate the very small percentage of the market that is not tracked.

As far as album sales go, realize that Atomic Bomb is crushing ATYCLB sales in these first few weeks when "Beautiful Day" was the flagship that was selling the album back in 2000/2001. The "Bomb" has sold as much in 3 weeks as it took ATYCLB to sell in 9 weeks!

All a song like ABOY has to do is about the same airplay level as "Stuck" and I'm confident it will do better than that. Then the next two or three singles just have to crack the HOT 100 which "Walk On" and "Elevation" failed to do.

Lets remember that "Atomic Bomb's" debut week was the 17th highest Debut week in the history of Soundscan! Of course one is going to see a drop from those numbers. But "Bomb's second and third weeks have been better than any of ATYCLB weeks with the exception of the debut and we still have not hit the Christmas week yet.

Unless "Bomb" drops below the 40,000 mark by the end of January in weekly sales, I'd say its going to beat ATYCLB. This album could be at the 2.5 million mark in sales to consumers by the end of Sunday January 2nd.
 
i bet it could be close to 6 million on a worldwide basis by the end of the year (i mean 6 million copies as tracked sales from mediatraffic.de)

till now it's 3.6million : i guess that this week and the next 1.6million is possible (i mean 800k each week) and that would make 5.2 million...with a week left till the end of the year i think that 6 million isn't out of this world, is it?
 
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