Week 57

[doctorwho]

Also, Sting, do we have any 100% positive, undisputable proof that ATYCLB sold 12M copies to customers worldwide?

We do know that 4.1M copies were sold in the U.S., which I think is incredible! If HTDAAB passes 3M (and it appears to be on its way), that too will be fantastic.

But worldwide sales are a bit "iffy". I believe the 9M for HTDAAB. However, as I wrote, do we have definitive proof that ATYCLB reached 12M - or are these based on estimates? If the latter, it might have sold less. If, for example, ATYCLB really only sold 11M worldwide, then HTDAAB is still very close.

I do recall reading a comment from McGuinness who was happy to report to U2 that AB sold 10M copies worldwide its first year. I'm sure that was shipped copies though. Either way, it seems HTDAAB is equal to AB in its first year - which, as you wrote, is VERY impressive, given that U2 are not only older, but the rampant downloading available. Plus, iTunes hurts and helps. While it may help singles, it hurts album sales as people now can legally download select songs and not have to buy the album. So that will also decrease CD sales, even though it is legit.

 

[roy]

Folks, this is 2005, and selling 9 million copies of an album in 2005 is equal to or more than selling 12 million copies of an album back in 2000/2001.

Simply put, you did not have the level of filesharing, CD Burning and other free download options in the amount that you have today. Take a look at sales of all CD's and you'll find the market has dropped significantly since 2000.


I consider BOMB to be a greater sales success, once you adjust for these factors, than ATYCLB.

I totally agree.

 

[edge3]

Yes, i agree but not quite as much : i mean this is definitly true of the US but in the UK overall artist album sales have more or less remained the same since 2000/01. In fact i reckon they're actually going to be a tiny bit higher this year (i think they were last year as well). But, it's true, last year overall album sales did drop in Germany & France (& maybe Italy) for those very reasons.

Overall though, if this were 2000/01, i reckon Bomb would now be at about the 3.8M sales to consumers mark in the US & 10.5-11M sales to consumers mark worldwide - which WOULD be better than the 9-9.5M, i believe ATYCLB was at after 1 year. But only by 1-2M, not 3.

As for current overall sales of ATYCLB... well, the last Soundscan figure i saw was definitely over 4.2M (4.238M i think) & that was just over 1 year ago so it should now be at the 4.3M mark in US. In Europe the figure must be over 4.5M now, so that's 9M now sold in US & Europe. I would think 3M (at least) in ROW is most likely when you consider that's the usual proportion of albums U2 sell in ROW. Also, i believe the official record company shipment figure, as reported on BBC Radio 1, just over 1 year ago, was 13.5M.

 

[ybird3k]

the UK is probably the only country in the world where CD sales havent reduced since 2000. it is also the only country (so far) where bomb has outsold ATYCLB?

so if CD sales hadnt had fallen since 2000, then bomb would have certainly sold more than ATYCLB everywhere

 

[STING2]

Also, Sting, do we have any 100% positive, undisputable proof that ATYCLB sold 12M copies to customers worldwide?

We do know that 4.1M copies were sold in the U.S., which I think is incredible! If HTDAAB passes 3M (and it appears to be on its way), that too will be fantastic.

But worldwide sales are a bit "iffy". I believe the 9M for HTDAAB. However, as I wrote, do we have definitive proof that ATYCLB reached 12M - or are these based on estimates? If the latter, it might have sold less. If, for example, ATYCLB really only sold 11M worldwide, then HTDAAB is still very close.

I do recall reading a comment from McGuinness who was happy to report to U2 that AB sold 10M copies worldwide its first year. I'm sure that was shipped copies though. Either way, it seems HTDAAB is equal to AB in its first year - which, as you wrote, is VERY impressive, given that U2 are not only older, but the rampant downloading available. Plus, iTunes hurts and helps. While it may help singles, it hurts album sales as people now can legally download select songs and not have to buy the album. So that will also decrease CD sales, even though it is legit.

One never uses the "sold to customers" figures which are always estimates because there is no such thing as global soundscan which tracks 100% of sales. Shipments are the way to see who has sold the most and thats what Billboard uses when discussing global sales. An album shipped is an album sold form the perspective the record company and the artist. Rarely are shipments out of line with sales to consumers after a year of release.

We know ATYCLB sold over 4 million in Europe, over 4 million in the USA, over .5 million in Canada, over .4 million in Brazil, over .3 million in Australia/New Zealand, over .3 million Japan. Right there, that is 9.5 million plus sales confirmed without adding in the extra sales over those particular marks, plus area's of the world not mentioned above. We know ATYCLB hit 10 million worldwide in December of 2001 and that it hit 11 million worldwide in mid 2002. I estimate the album is probably at or around 12 million at this point.

I'd say 12 million for ATYCLB and a little over 9 million for the BOMB at this point. BOMB still has a decent shot at 10 million of course. But even at this point, I still see BOMB as being the more successful album given the market conditions now as apposed to four years ago.

 

[edge3]

If ATYCLB really had shipped 13.5M by Nov 2004, as was claimed by the record company on BBC radio 1 at that time, then it most probably had already reached 12M at this point. This would mean it should now be close to / at 12.5M : i mean the tour brought it well back onto various countries album charts & i'm pretty sure that it's sold about another 150-200K in UK & US, since Nov 2004.

Also, that U2 Uncut Legends magazine said it had sold 12M & that was from around mid 2004.

 

[STING2]

If ATYCLB really had shipped 13.5M by Nov 2004, as was claimed by the record company on BBC radio 1 at that time, then it most probably had already reached 12M at this point. This would mean it should now be close to / at 12.5M : i mean the tour brought it well back onto various countries album charts & i'm pretty sure that it's sold about another 150-200K in UK & US, since Nov 2004.

Also, that U2 Uncut Legends magazine said it had sold 12M & that was from around mid 2004.

If ATYCLB had shipped 13.5 million by Nov 2004, then its sales to consumers at that time would probably be close to 13 million. Once an album has been out for a year or more, the difference between actual shipments and sales to consumers is small.

 

[Soldatti]

Crazy moves on the UK chart this week (including 60 re-entries on the Top 200) but U2 is nowhere on the chart.

I'm leaving for vacations now, see you all in two weeks.
Bye.

 

[edge3]

Have a good one Soldatti & Happy New Year (to everyone else also)

 

[mosquito]

U2 still have an album in this week uk top 200 chart. Best of 80-90 is at #90(177) (week ending january 7,2006)

 

[Soldatti]

Oh, apologies! U2 do still have an album in the Top 200 but I missed it, I'm a little drunk still after a long party last night...

177 - 90 - THE BEST OF 1980-1990 - U2 - ISLAND - CIDU211 - 308

Also in singles:
RE - 240 - SOMETIMES YOU CAN'T MAKE IT ON YOUR OWN - U2 - ISLAND - CIDX886 - 35

We have the right info now.
Bye.

 

[mosquito]

 

[edge3]

Great results from Italy ! :

Bomb # 80 (RE)
ABOY # 36 (RE)

Considering this was Xmas week i assume this means sales of Bomb would have been up around 4-5K (maybe ChargedVT or VALE69 has a better idea ?)

So, for this week, that's now around 43k sold in 60% of Bombs total selling markets (UK, US, Canada, France, Aus & Italy).

 

[fedeu2]

I´m sure that in a very short time U2 management will announce that the bomb has sold (shipped) 10M worldwide.
If sales to consumers are approximately at 9.5 million, it´s only natural than 500,000 additional copies have been shifted by now.

Great results from Italy ! :

Bomb # 80 (RE)
ABOY # 36 (RE)

Considering this was Xmas week i assume this means sales of Bomb would have been up around 4-5K (maybe ChargedVT or VALE69 has a better idea ?)

So, for this week, that's now around 43k sold in 60% of Bombs total selling markets (UK, US, Canada, France, Aus & Italy).

 

[edge3]

I´m sure that in a very short time U2 management will announce that the bomb has sold (shipped) 10M worldwide.
If sales to consumers are approximately at 9.5 million, it´s only natural than 500,000 additional copies have been shifted by now.

I’m still rather under the impression that, somewhere along the line, this HAS already been anounced : i mean i still don't really see why Mojo & Q magazine (+ a few others) would have said, (months ago in the case of Mojo) that it's 'sold' (shipped) 10M if it hadn't.

So i kind of think that total shipments ARE (still) at 10M with 9.1-9.5M of that now sold to consumers.

It's the same as Coldplay's X&Y : the DJ on BBC Radio 2 just said that X&Y has now 'sold' (shipped) 10M - & that MUST be a shipment figure 'cos it's total sales to consumers are now at about 8.4M... about the same that Bomb was at when Mojo said Bomb had 'sold' (shipped) 10M.

 

[fedeu2]

I see where you come from but I meant an official announcement.
Maybe I´ve missed it?

I’m still rather under the impression that, somewhere along the line, this HAS already been anounced : i mean i still don't really see why Mojo & Q magazine (+ a few others) would have said, (months ago in the case of Mojo) that it's 'sold' (shipped) 10M if it hadn't.

So i kind of think that total shipments ARE (still) at 10M with 9.1-9.5M of that now sold to consumers.

It's the same as Coldplay's X&Y : the DJ on BBC Radio 2 just said that X&Y has now 'sold' (shipped) 10M - & that MUST be a shipment figure 'cos it's total sales to consumers are now at about 8.4M... about the same that Bomb was at when Mojo said Bomb had 'sold' (shipped) 10M.

 

[STING2]

I’m still rather under the impression that, somewhere along the line, this HAS already been anounced : i mean i still don't really see why Mojo & Q magazine (+ a few others) would have said, (months ago in the case of Mojo) that it's 'sold' (shipped) 10M if it hadn't.

So i kind of think that total shipments ARE (still) at 10M with 9.1-9.5M of that now sold to consumers.

It's the same as Coldplay's X&Y : the DJ on BBC Radio 2 just said that X&Y has now 'sold' (shipped) 10M - & that MUST be a shipment figure 'cos it's total sales to consumers are now at about 8.4M... about the same that Bomb was at when Mojo said Bomb had 'sold' (shipped) 10M.

Well, the number of albums sold to consumers is not more than 9 million at this point for the BOMB, probably about 9 million on the dot actually or 8.9 million. Total shipments are not going to above 9.5 million and are likely around 9.3 million considering the weekly average of sales and the number copies sold to consumers. On average, record stores only keep about 4 to 5 times the current weekly sales in stock in preperation for a full month at that sales level. If sales pick up more will be ordered, and if sales drop, there will not be any more orders for good while until more of the stock has been sold.

Remember, there has been no new certifications levels reached in Europe and North America, or any other part of the world since early 2005.

Websites and radio stations make exaggerated claims about album sales all the time. Its important to stick with the hard data form mediatraffic, soundscan, RIAA, IFPI and other organizations that measure sales and shipments.

 

[ChargedVT]

To Edge3... as for the #80 in Italy....
I've always figured Italy has roughly the same market size as Australia and I believe the #80 album in Australia would have sold 3-3.5k christmas week.
I came up with a figure of 55k worldwide for the week.

 

[fedeu2]

One problem is we haven´t had new data from mediatraffic for the last two months or so. We cannot be certain about it but I would guess mediatraffic sales right now would stand at 8,5 million. The other problem is we don´t know whether mediatraffic tracks 95 or 90% of worlwide sales. If the latter, then, I would say sales to consumers are very close to 9,5 million. Otherwise, the figure should be 9 million.

Well, the number of albums sold to consumers is not more than 9 million at this point for the BOMB, probably about 9 million on the dot actually or 8.9 million. Total shipments are not going to above 9.5 million and are likely around 9.3 million considering the weekly average of sales and the number copies sold to consumers. On average, record stores only keep about 4 to 5 times the current weekly sales in stock in preperation for a full month at that sales level. If sales pick up more will be ordered, and if sales drop, there will not be any more orders for good while until more of the stock has been sold.

Remember, there has been no new certifications levels reached in Europe and North America, or any other part of the world since early 2005.

Websites and radio stations make exaggerated claims about album sales all the time. Its important to stick with the hard data form mediatraffic, soundscan, RIAA, IFPI and other organizations that measure sales and shipments.

 

[edge3]

One problem is we haven´t had new data from mediatraffic for the last two months or so. We cannot be certain about it but I would guess mediatraffic sales right now would stand at 8,5 million. The other problem is we don´t know whether mediatraffic tracks 95 or 90% of worlwide sales. If the latter, then, I would say sales to consumers are very close to 9,5 million. Otherwise, the figure should be 9 million.

Yes, indeed...

& just to clarify : since the Mediatraffic total reached 8.188M we actually haven't had any more updates for over FOUR months now - 18 weeks to be precise & if one looks carefully at the hard sales data one will find that it CANNOT have only been averaging 12k per week, for a total of 8.9M, during this time. And that's assuming Mediatraffic cover 94% of total sales which is the MOST that their coverage could possibly be. Bomb has most likely been averaging 20-25k per week in these 18 weeks which, assuming Mediatraffic coverage of 94%, would bring its current sales to consumers total to 9.039M-9.129M.

 

[fedeu2]

Well, the only thing to do now edge3 is to convince sting2 that overall sales for the bomb are actually closer to 9,5 than to 9 million

Yes, indeed...

& just to clarify : since the Mediatraffic total reached 8.188M we actually haven't had any more updates for over FOUR months now - 18 weeks to be precise & if one looks carefully at the hard sales data one will find that it CANNOT have only been averaging 12k per week, for a total of 8.9M, during this time. And that's assuming Mediatraffic cover 94% of total sales which is the MOST that their coverage could possibly be. Bomb has most likely been averaging 20-25k per week in these 18 weeks which, assuming Mediatraffic coverage of 94%, would bring its current sales to consumers total to 9.039M-9.129M.

 

[ChargedVT]

HUGE sales in France the christmas week...

The top 3 sold over 100k
#10 sold 57,690
#50 sold 12,534
#100 sold 6095

So Bomb at #120 I would guess 4.5-5k.

 

[edge3]

Great ! so total French sales, to this point, should be around 424,000