List of best-selling music artists in Japan
The top music artists in Japan include Japanese artists with claims of 15 million or more record sales or with over 2 million subscribers. Japan is the largest physical music market in the world and the second largest overall behind the United States, and the biggest in Asia, according to International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.[1][2]
This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.Sources that provide the sales an artist or record company claim via press release, rather than certified or reported by reliable third parties such as Oricon, are denoted by a "†".
Oricon Charts[edit]
Oricon provides accumulated physical sales of all entries on its singles and albums charts (started in 1968 and 1970, respectively).[3] Note that Oricon does not count sales of the records that did not enter or fell off of the charts, unlike Nielsen SoundScan. Therefore, it generally shows fewer numbers than reported sales via record labels, and may not reflect the real sales obtained by these artists. In addition, it excludes recording artists like Michiya Mihashi,[4] Hibari Misora, Yujiro Ishihara, and Hachiro Kasuga who had garnered most of commercial success before Oricon was established in the late 1960s. The reported numbers like Mihashi's 100 million and Misora's 68 million records,[5][6] are highly doubtful and cannot be confirmed by Oricon and RIAJ.
The best-selling artist according to Oricon are B'z (more than 86 million), who is also the best-selling artist by a number of albums sold (46.5 million).[7] The best-selling artists by number of singles sold are AKB48 (50.8 million),[8] B'z (35.8 million) in second place,[9] Mr. Children (28.45 million) in third place,[10] and Southern All Stars (25.179 million) in fourth place.[11] Ayumi Hamasaki holds the record for being the best-selling solo artist and being the only solo artist to sell more than 50 million in total.[12]
The list excludes sales of albums or singles recorded by artists in collaboration with others as part of a singular artist or group's total.
