User talk:Zeth333

Re:Thank you. And about Teresa Teng

First of all, thank you for appreciating my work at List of best-selling music artists. As for Teresa Teng, we've had discussions in the past about her sales, one of which could be found within the archive11, and the second brief discussion, which eventually resulted in Teresa Teng's removal from the list, can be found within archive12. I have also removed the unreferenced statement from her wiki page which stated " To date she currently holds the record of being the highest selling Asian artist of all time with sales of over 100 million, slightly higher than that of Michiya Mihashi. Should you have any questions, please feel free to ask me. Thanks.--Harout72 (talk) 16:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

A few questions. 1) Why do you think that the stated figure by The Independent is not solid evidence (in archive 12), especially when the 22 million in sales is estimated by Billboard? 2) Which column at this page represents sales figures, and are they in millions (I'm unable to copy and paste it in Google language-translator)? 3)Could you provide the exact page of IFPI (Hong Kong) at this site so I can translate (I'm unable to surf about due to my inability to read Chinese)? And finally, no offense but 80 million votes casted out of 250 million representing Teng's being the most influential artist, is in no way evidence or suggestion that most of her records that have so far been sold in her home of China are not pirate copied units.--Harout72 (talk) 22:22, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

As much as I value sales numbers coming out of the Japanese market (since it's the most important market in Asia Pacific as well as the second largest market in the world) to determine whether an artist in question has or has not sold a speculated/stated figure, with all honesty, I don't know what more I could do at this point as I'm literally bound to believe what reliable sources claim (referring to The Independent). I have no way of putting the certification databases into work to see what Teng's actual figures might look like. However, let's keep in mind that the music markets in Asia Pacific (with an exception of the Japanese market) have never been able to generate much sales due to their tenuous sizes, that said, the 100 million may have been tossed about as a promotional tool to boost sales of an upcoming compilation-album or something. As for which 25 albums have generated the 22 million, I believe, Billboard speaks of those 25 albums which have actually sold. In other words, I'm guessing (since you're saying that Teng has released countless materials) she has only been able to achieve notable sales with only 25 of her all released albums. Also, some artists record their materials in two languages for two regions (for example), the albums are not; however, considered two different albums, they are the same album in a different language (I'm not sure if this is what Teng's done). Anyways, inform me if you come across a reliable source claiming over 50 million for Teng, we'll look it at together.--Harout72 (talk) 02:21, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry, I failed to mention that I was referring to legitimate sales not pirated sales. Indeed, having sold as many as 50-70 million in pirated sales in Asia Pacific (again with an exception of Japan) for someone like Teng, is quite logical as they would sell pirated burned-CDs/Cassettes only for a quarter of price than that of legally pressed CDs/Cassettes. The size of music markets as well as record-sales largely rely on two factors, economy and the size of population. As I'm sure you're aware, most countries in Asia Pacific including China have always had a large population but have lacked well developed economy (referring to per capita in this case) which has prevented consumers from spending money on luxury, including records (at least legitimate records). But in the end, pirated sales are not counted towards artists' record sales.--Harout72 (talk) 17:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC)