HomeBusiness NewsKing & Prince bought 1.2m bodily copies of their newest album ‘Mr.5’ in its first week in Japan, turning into the market’s fastest-selling album this yr
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In Q1 2023, considered one of Universal Music Group’s biggest-selling artists worldwide alongside the likes of Morgan Wallen, Taylor Swift and TOMORROW X TOGETHER, was celebrity Japanese pop group King & Prince.
Common Music Group reported final month that its total recorded music revenues for Q1 2023 (together with streaming plus bodily and so on.) was €1.923 billion ($2.06bn), up 9.6% YoY at fixed foreign money.
Inside Common’s recorded music enterprise, bodily revenues grew 32.6% YoY at fixed foreign money to €313 million ($335.84m).
UMG stated that this progress was pushed “by sturdy CD and DVD gross sales in Japan and enhancements in vinyl gross sales”.
Contributing to these sturdy gross sales and to UMG’s total recorded music revenues, have been superstars King & Prince, signed through Common Music Japan.
As highlighted by UMG Chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge on the corporate’s name with analysts on April 26, King & Prince bought over 1 million CD copies of their single Life Goes On in its first week.
Grainge famous that was “the primary time in three years that gross sales threshold was crossed”.
Following the success of Life Goes On, King & Prince, and Common Music Japan, have continued to promote a number of bodily music available in the market.
UMG says that the group have now set the report for 2023’s fastest-selling album in Japan, with the discharge of their compilation album, Mr.5 ( launched on April 19).
The album achieved bodily gross sales of greater than 1.2 million in its first week.
The ‘better of’ album additionally grew to become the band’s fifth consecutive album to debut at No.1 on Japan’s Oricon weekly album chart and is the primary album of 2023 to promote multiple million copies throughout its first week in Japan.
Since debuting in 2018, King & Prince, have turn out to be considered one of Japan’s hottest teams.
Mr.5 marks the band’s fastest-selling album up to now, reaching CD gross sales of greater than 1.03 million copies in its first 48 hours, with 916,000 gross sales on its first day on sale.
That is the band’s fifth consecutive album to prime the Oricon album chart, with all 5 albums reaching home first week gross sales of greater than 300,000 copies.
Credit score: Masakazu Yoshiba
“This exhibits that bodily CDs nonetheless have nice potential in Japan as a product for artists to precise their creativity and entertain their followers.”
Naoshi Fujikura, Common Music Japan
Talking on the chart success, Common Music Japan President & CEO Naoshi Fujikura, stated: “King & Prince have been Japan’s prime boy band since their debut in 2018, with every single, album, and video they’ve produced reaching No.1 on the charts.
“We’re delighted that this album, which represents the end result of this part of their actions, has turn out to be the best-selling album in Japan this yr, promoting over one million copies upon its launch.
“On the similar time, this exhibits that bodily CDs nonetheless have nice potential in Japan as a product for artists to precise their creativity and entertain their followers. We are going to proceed to assist all of their actions to assist them obtain future success.”
In keeping with RIAJ information, revenues from CD gross sales in Japan, the world’s second-largest recorded music market, topped 129.8 billion yen (USD $987m) in 2022, up 5% YoY (see under).
When it comes to different bodily codecs, Vinyl gross sales generated revenues of 4.336 billion yen (USD $32.9m) in 2022, up 11% YoY.
