Japan: AKB48's makes history again

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e2/Kaze_wa_Fuiteiru_album_cover.jpg/220px-Kaze_wa_Fuiteiru_album_cover.jpg

 

With first week sales of 1,300,482 copies, AKB48's newly released "Kaze Wa Fuiteiru" has set the third result for highest first week sales of a physical single. The record was established back in August this year, when group's previous single "Flying Get" went on to sell 1,354,492 copies in its first week.

 

The first day sales of "Kaze Wa Fuiteiru" (1,045,937 copies) set a new record for most copies of a single sold in one day.

 

This release marks their 10th consecutive #1 single on the Oricon chart. They now have a total of 5 singles selling over a million copies.

 

The top 10 Japanese highest selling first week singles:

 

1. "Flying Get" (2011) – AKB48 – 1,354,492

2. "Everyday, Kachusha" (2011) - AKB48 – 1,333,969

3. "Kaze Wa Fuiteiru" (2011) – AKB48 – 1,300,482

4. "Namonaki Uta" (1996) – Mr. Children – 1,208,230

5. "Addicted To You" (1999) – Hikaru Utada – 1,067,510

6. "Dango 3 Kyoudai" (1999) – Kentaro Hayami, Ayumi Shigemori, Himawari Kids & Dango Gasshoudan – 1,025,740

7. "Winter, Again" (1999) – Glay – 955,780

8. "Love Phantom" (1995) – B'z – 951,140

9. "Sakura No Ki Ni Narou" (2011) – AKB48 – 942,479

10. "Kimi Ga Iru Dake De/Aishiteru" (1992) – Kome Kome Club – 924,780

An AKB48 single doing worse than the previous one? :o

Did it sell that much in physicals?! :o

Yep. The Japanese market is still largely physical driven, downloads don't count towards the charts (they are mostly only sold as ringtones anyway) and iTunes isn't big (only 2 or 3 of the majors release on it).

Looks like they've finally reached saturation levels... thank God for that!

It's more like this single wasn't promoted as much. Flying Get was the single after the election whereas Everyday was the election single hence MASSIVE sales. Their next single will probably open with less than a million as it's an AKB48 single with the less popular members.

 

But still, Kaze Wa Fuiteiru has got their highest first day daily sales ever even beating Flying Get and Everyday but didn't sell as much in the long run.

 

It's funny how the UK and US market, people make out how expensive the CDs are. Each number of single sold in Japan for these AKB48 costs around £10-18 each, and that's only for 2-5 SONGS sometimes including the instrumentals. Imagine including illegal activity as well, the numbers would be HUGE.