[SINGLE] 25th single 'GIVE ME FIVE!' 2/15

I really would be interested in learning about how many copies they press, how they are distributed, how they are sold, and how it all works out. Usually something popular in Japan has a big up and then a big down, but AKB48 went up, up, up and up and so far are at up and not showing signs of going down. This to me is really remarkable. It takes a lot of work and talent to be able to consistently sell like this.

What I wonder is if there's a bottleneck somewhere, whether distribution, production or elsewhere that sets the limit to 1.25-1.65 and nothing more. I think it's unrealistic to keep expecting to see massive growth with every single, there's a roof to all of this usually (and perhaps AKB48 has reached that roof)

Most of the singles are sold to people who preorder them and with releases often being announced several months in advance its safe to assume production volume is heavily dependant on the number of preorders. Although funny enough there is still a demand for the old AKB stuff in physical stores, its not all too rare to see people buying random old AKB singles like Bingo... which means even the old stuff still has to be produced unlike other units where they try desperately to get rid of the leftovers in some 500yen shelf.

Yep the big up and down is certainly true, take Mr Children for example, a couple years ago they stomped past everything in their path on Oricon, now they even have to be careful when they release to get no1, however physical cd sales aren't always a reliable indication of popularity, take Ayumi Hamasaki for example, she had million sellers in the past and now struggles to even get 100k anymore, but shes still highly popular, sells out Arenas, gets tons of advertisement deals and so on, also another thing is the whole digital distribution system which can be dominated by Units that sell no where near as much as AKB, like for example Exile frequently ranks very highly on various mobile services, if you ever look at the mobile phone of a Japanese Girl you'd be shocked just how much stuff Exile releases on various mobile platforms, yet on Oricon Exile just does well, but no where near AKB or even just Arashi.
To be honest I think AKB is simply running into the ceiling of how many people are willing to buy physical copies at all, production can be changed as they know months in advance if it will tank or not, so I doubt there is too much of a limit on the supply side.
But like I said before, even old stuff still sells to some extent, craziest example I've found while in Japan was some random record store in Akihabara that had the entire ground floor dedicated to ***48 Empire (my credit card will have me quartered drawn and hung if I ever find that shop again :lol:

), ok they didn't just sell cds but also PBs and a small selection of random other ***48 merch, but show me one other Idol unit where a shop would do that... so yeah the popularity of AKB is really insane and even if the singles are already selling millions each, its not the end of whats possible yet, maybe not so much of a rise in future singles sales, but more TV Shows, more Arena Tours, more advertisements (although its hard to imagine Tomomis face on even more billboards, maybe they could use Mayuyu butt just once for a change? :lol:

), more stuff on the various mobile phones services, ultimately even if you sell a million physical sales are just going to be a small part of the whole thing.
Either way, if we look at the list of stuff Aki-P has been involved with in the past decades and how some of it sold he sure knows a thing or two about what the market wants and what will sell, sorry to mention it again, but yes, its Nao-kun pimps Heavy Rotation time

I mean just look at the lyrics of Heavy Rotation, when the song was made long before even the first preorder was placed someone was already that confident about its success... which unintentionally kind of reveals how predictable the music industry must be for someone with the experience of Aki-P.

Damn, that post ended up longer than expected.