Why should we take ifpi seriously?

  • Year after year, this so called chart proves untrustworthy with the way they arbitrarily skip artists and albums with great sales, downsize sales of certain albums and artists but not others and etcetera. So why exactly should we take it seriously? The prevalent argument is that some companies don't report their sales but why should they? Korea has two official album sales tracking charts, Hanteo and Gaon. So why can't ifpi do their own homework and get a complete list from either Hanteo or gaon? Do you all not see how ridiculous it is for a so called international chart not to include double million seller albums just because they weren't contacted personally by the companies? Official local charts are there for a reason.


    And before bts and seventeen fans come at me, I'm not trying to discredit your faves. They have great sales and deserve the recognition but you all can't deny that this chart is ridiculous and incomplete. Every year people come up with new excuses to explain these discrepancies but is it really worth it? Bts and svt don't need an incomplete, nonsensical chart to prove their success.

  • Moderator

    Approved the thread.
  • I'm not sure what exactly you are expecting from this thread. You are free to not take it seriously :oops:

  • Is this because nct didn't make it lol. Of course the classic case of my fave didn't make it so that makes it irrelevant...

  • This year was the first that I heard about ifpi.


    What is it, and is it any better than Gaon or than to be listed on Gaon?

  • so can you explain how they didn't make it exactly?

    send ifpi an email or something. I'm sure they'll explain.

  • Aren’t all companies required to send in their data for IFPI? unless that isn’t the case. Why don’t you wait for the full list to come out?, if NCT didn’t make it that means SM didn’t send their data, if NCT made it but were in lower positions = other western artists did better than them. Either ways leads to a better conclusion than calling the list useless just because NCT didn’t make it.

  • Don't worry about something as incomplete as ifpi

    There are people who call awards shows irrelevant when their faves don't win. < Don't become one of these.

  • sure, you don't have to take it seriously,

    but don't come with other charts than lol

    can't go pick and choose what charts you do take serious, just bc your faves weren't on this particular one.

    this is a very respected one & even huge artist and companies pride themself in charting on it

  • so can you explain how they didn't make it exactly?

    As someone else said wait for the full chart to come out before throwing accusations. There's been a discussion about this on reddit that has some possible answers.

    Why are NCT albums absent from the IFPI Global Album Sales Chart?
    The IFPI list came out today, and I fully expected to see at least two NCT albums and one or two of Seventeen’s (and they did chart so congrats to...
    www.reddit.com

  • Nobody force you to take it seriously but it doesn't it mean that it wasn't respected by others and industry music in general. If it's about nct it just mean that the albums being shipped wasn't sold high enough to put nct in the ipfi ranking compared to other artists sales.

  • In case people are too lazy too follow the link these are the possibilities I remember.


    Sm possibly didn't report sales. Ifpi reaches out to record companies who then report on sales. The question would be why in the would would sm not report this?? sm doesn't skip a chance for getting articles on random things like itunes and irrelevant billboard charts but they would skip a huge chart like ifpi? This chart is what big artists use when media playing success. When you see news about Adele having the best selling album of 2015 this chart is what is referred to.


    Seventeen possibly sold more than nct. Ifpi uses actual sales plus digital sales. So not gaon which is simply shipments. They use something closer to hanteo but more accurate. Hanteo only counts for hanteo certified sales.

    Japanese sales are not counted on this number. Svt eclipses nct in Japan so they got more sales there. Also remember Japan sales are usually weighted more than typical sales. Chinese sales are weighted less.

    Svt also charted on more album charts than nct so they obviously got more digital sales than them.

    Nct also has quite the gap between hanteo and gaon compared to svt.

    All this means it's entirely possible that svt actually sold more album units than nct.

  • External Content twitter.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

    Sm overshipped the albums. The fact that seventeen made to the list but not nct

  • External Content twitter.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

    Sm overshipped the albums. The fact that seventeen made to the list but not nct

    External Content twitter.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.


    god, save us all from hube stans and their endless conspiracy theories about SM and NCT :suure:

  • every year people come up with new excuses to explain the discrapancies of this list. if the digital sales excuse was real then bts would have ranked higher than seventeen and so would have many of the other international artists in the list. second, why are you acting like seventeen does so much better than nct digitally? especially internationally? they don't, especially not against nct dream, and definitely not enough to make up for the gap of over 400k units hot sauce has over your choice in hanteo alone. hot sauce album has an average of 17.6M streams in spotify while your choice has an average of 12.8M. in fact hot sauce the song has almost as many streams as the entirety of the your choice ep. so i don't know where you're getting your stats from. Finally what you said about seventeen charting in more charts is a lie. nct 127 charted in several international charts that were up until now exclusive to bts and blackpink and they had the best selling kpop album in bb200 last year.

    seventeen is doing amazing and they should belong in any chart of best selling artists in the whole world, it is just that your arguments don't make sense. the only argument that might make sense is the assumption that sm didn't report nct's sales. and my point here is if this list depends on whether companies will personally report data that's already public and easily accessible to them then that's a shite incomplete list.

  • Nobody force you to take it seriously but it doesn't it mean that it wasn't respected by others and industry music in general. If it's about nct it just mean that the albums being shipped wasn't sold high enough to put nct in the ipfi ranking compared to other artists sales.

    Then why hot sauce sold more than your choice on hanteo (pure sales) yet the lowest selling album ranked while they didnt. That gaon gap thing used as excuse to drag nct is getting boring atp

    FJyhY-QaMAEQ2Nq?format=jpg&name=900x900

  • As someone mentioned either SM didn’t report, but seems highly unlikely or unbelievable as to why they would be so unconfident in their best selling group. So, this hypothetical scenario remains unconfirmed.


    Or they missed the spot by a small gap. It could make sense too since BTS made it entirely with their Japanese album, and those are weighed up like crazy due to the prices, loyal consumers, and Japan simply being the 2nd biggest music market in the world. Even looking at Seventeen, their Gaon and Hanteo gaps are a lot smaller, so it could be entirely possible that they sold more in terms of pure sales in comparison to NCT units and since they were second and third to BTS on the year-end retail chart. Also, not to mention that Seventeen, like Bts, also had their sales weighed up due to the crazy demand for them in Japan.


    To check the credibility of IFPI; their sources are very credible. They don’t just rely on companies to report their acts numbers, their sources are credible organizations; GDP (The World Bank), Population and Language (The CIA World Factbook), Currency Exchange Rates (Oanda), Information and Technology indicators (We Are Social), Top Independent Labels (Lists are provided by IFPI National groups based on the market data available to them), and then record companies.

  • As someone mentioned either SM didn’t report, but seems highly unlikely or unbelievable as to why they would be so unconfident in their best selling group. So, this hypothetical scenario remains unconfirmed.


    Or they missed the spot by a small gap. It could make sense too since BTS made it entirely with their Japanese album, and those are weighed up like crazy due to the prices, loyal consumers, and Japan simply being the 2nd biggest music market in the world. Even looking at Seventeen, their Gaon and Hanteo gaps are a lot smaller, so it could be entirely possible that they sold more in terms of pure sales in comparison to NCT units and since they were second and third to BTS on the year-end retail chart. Also, not to mention that Seventeen, like Bts, also had their sales weighed up due to the crazy demand for them in Japan.


    To check the credibility of IFPI; their sources are very credible. They don’t just rely on companies to report their acts numbers, their sources are credible organizations; GDP (The World Bank), Population and Language (The CIA World Factbook), Currency Exchange Rates (Oanda), Information and Technology indicators (We Are Social), Top Independent Labels (Lists are provided by IFPI National groups based on the market data available to them), and then record companies.

    nct's dream hot sauce album sold 400k+ more than seventeen's your choice in hanteo so let's stop talking about the hanteo-gaon gap. 400k is not a small number. And both seventeen's albums were korean albums so the weighing up argument doesn't cut it here either, these are koreans albums that were shipped from korea to other countries, japan or otherwise. so there is no weighing up and no added bonus for japan sales, since those would already be counted in gaon and mostly in hanteo too.

  • every year people come up with new excuses to explain the discrapancies of this list. if the digital sales excuse was real then bts would have ranked higher than seventeen and so would have many of the other international artists in the list. second, why are you acting like seventeen does so much better than nct digitally? especially internationally? they don't, especially not against nct dream, and definitely not enough to make up for the gap of over 400k units hot sauce has over your choice in hanteo alone. hot sauce album has an average of 17.6M streams in spotify while your choice has an average of 12.8M. in fact hot sauce the song has almost as many streams as the entirety of the your choice ep. so i don't know where you're getting your stats from. Finally what you said about seventeen charting in more charts is a lie. nct 127 charted in several international charts that were up until now exclusive to bts and blackpink and they had the best selling kpop album in bb200 last year.

    seventeen is doing amazing and they should belong in any chart of best selling artists in the whole world, it is just that your arguments don't make sense. the only argument that might make sense is the assumption that sm didn't report nct's sales. and my point here is if this list depends on whether companies will personally report data that's already public and easily accessible to them then that's a shite incomplete list.

    I don't know much about any of these sales or chart to be honest. That was me trying to answer the question from random stuff I read on reddit. For the digitals I wasn't talking about spotify as I don't even know if the album chart counts streams. I was talking more itunes type digitals than anything.


    For your point about BTS not making it higher you have to remember that this is their japanese album. Many fans outside Japan don't usually pay attention to japanese releases and pretty sure the album sold much less than svt albums overall. The reason it made it so high on the list is because as I said before japanese albums are weighted much higher than other albums.

  • I mean I thought it had been established that SM do not report their sales to this chart. I'd never even heard of this ifpi until kpop stans decided it was their latest weapon in the "my fave is better than yours" olympics.


    I did see a certain seventeen stan hyping this list to the gods on main but like... let them have it.. the data is clear that nct subunits sold more than 17 this year and no amount of obfuscating will change that.

  • I mean I thought it had been established that SM do not report their sales to this chart. I'd never even heard of this ifpi until kpop stans decided it was their latest weapon in the "my fave is better than yours" olympics.


    I did see a certain seventeen stan hyping this list to the gods on main but like... let them have it.. the data is clear that nct subunits sold more than 17 this year and no amount of obfuscating will change that.

    Just because you don’t know what IFPI is, it doesn’t make it any less prestigious or a well known official charts. It’s no ones fault except SM who didn’t report it or NCT sales couldn’t make it for some reason( maybe western artists had more(as it is inclu digital downloads)). nctzens mocked others for calling SMA irrelevant when NCT won a daesang and their faves didn’t and now you guys are doing the same.


    Nctzens, Please just accept the result and move on. 17 made it to the charts because their Japanese sales weigh more.

  • I mean I thought it had been established that SM do not report their sales to this chart. I'd never even heard of this ifpi until kpop stans decided it was their latest weapon in the "my fave is better than yours" olympics.


    I did see a certain seventeen stan hyping this list to the gods on main but like... let them have it.. the data is clear that nct subunits sold more than 17 this year and no amount of obfuscating will change that.

    you probably didn't know about it bc it was only once bts started to chart on it regulary, that kpop fans discovered it. before them, no kpop group was big enough to chart on it, but big western artists & their fans all know this chart very well.


    you believing sm didn't report their sales or being bitter bc nct's sales weren't enough in the end, won't change the validity & credibility of this chart. you can, however, decide to stop caring about charts & such achievements if that makes you feel better!

  • 17 made it to the charts because their Japanese sales weigh more.

    Please stop with this nonsensical argument. Attaca and your choice are both Korean albums, they're shipped from Korean to Japan as Korean products and they're accounted for in gaon and mostly in Hanteo too. It's the same price so there's no weighing up to speak of here. This is not about Japanese albums versus Korean albums.

  • I mean I thought it had been established that SM do not report their sales to this chart. I'd never even heard of this ifpi until kpop stans decided it was their latest weapon in the "my fave is better than yours" olympics.


    I did see a certain seventeen stan hyping this list to the gods on main but like... let them have it.. the data is clear that nct subunits sold more than 17 this year and no amount of obfuscating will change that.

    this is just your coping mechanism

  • You can search the internet pretty easily for ongoing issues around IFPI’s reporting, notably around underreporting in 2019 on BTS.


    Sales of BTS’ ‘Map of the Soul: Persona’ underreported to IFPI
    Overseas sales of BTS’ 2019 record “Map of the Soul: Persona” are believed to have been massively underreported to the International Federation of the…
    www.koreaherald.com


    As well as SVT and NCT last year.


    The numbers are self reported by the labels and not all labels participate. Lots of threads around this on AKP every year.



  • Please stop with this nonsensical argument. Attaca and your choice are both Korean albums, they're shipped from Korean to Japan as Korean products and they're accounted for in gaon and mostly in Hanteo too. It's the same price so there's no weighing up to speak of here. This is not about Japanese albums versus Korean albums.

    This just concludes that NCT didn’t have enough sales.

  • someone is definitely salty af

  • I mean I thought it had been established that SM do not report their sales to this chart

    Weird SM don't send theirs. This is literally an important chart even billboard posted about this. There's no way they're losing a chance to mediaplay out of this. Lmao, they know the truth about those millions of sales.

  • CHINA sales are weighted down a lot so that is why we are missing some artists in that list

  • CHINA sales are weighted down a lot so that is why we are missing some artists in that list

    For the umpteenth time these are Korean albums with a standardised price, they're sold for the same price everywhere in the world because they're shipped from Korea. Stop talking about weighing up/down, it doesn't make any sense here.



    This just concludes that NCT didn’t have enough sales.

    No it doesn't. All the official charts point to otherwise. Hot Sauce has 400k+ over your choice IN HANTEO.

    The way some of you insist that SM, a public company, would get away with faking millions of sales is hilarious.

  • For the umpteenth time these are Korean albums with a standardised price, they're sold for the same price everywhere in the world because they're shipped from Korea. Stop talking about weighing up/down, it doesn't make any sense here.

    Only doesn’t make sense to you. To those who know the rules it does.

  • Only doesn’t make sense to you. To those who know the rules it does.

    You obviously don't understand what you're talking about which makes this supposed clap back cringey.


    Chinese albums are weighed down because they're too cheap compared to other countries' standard album prices.


    Japanese albums are weighed up because they're more expensive than ordinary albums elsewhere in the world.


    The albums we're talking about here are all Korean. They're sold everywhere in the world, including China and Japan, at the Korean price, because they're shipped directly from Korea. So, no, seventeen's albums are not weighed up because they have more Japanese fans and nct's albums are not weighed down because they have more Chinese fans. That's not how this works, unless you're suggesting this list weighs albums with the same price differently according to the nationality of the customers buying those albums. I hope you realise how fucked up that is.

  • stop dragging bts and svt, both groups did so well last year and rightfully deserve their spot and their fans deserve to be happy

  • This chart doesn't count physical sales alone :facepalm: sales from all digital platforms are counted too. So all those qq downloads are weighted down. That's why Chinese artists rarely make it on the list despite having 10s of millions in downloads.


    Sales and downloads from Japan are weighted up. Like people have been telling you.


    This chart is not only limited to physical sales, itunes and spotify but all forms of music consumption even local ones.

  • This chart doesn't count physical sales alone :facepalm: sales from all digital platforms are counted too. So all those qq downloads are weighted down. That's why Chinese artists rarely make it on the list despite having 10s of millions in downloads.


    Sales and downloads from Japan are weighted up. Like people have been telling you.


    This chart is not only limited to physical sales, itunes and spotify but all forms of music consumption even local ones.

    You gotta be delusional if you think seventeen's digital sales in Japan can make up for the 400k+ hot sauce has over your choice in hanteo, especially when nct dream does better than them digitally in the international charts you mentioned.



    Salty thread

    There was a disclaimer in the op that I believe bts and seventeen belong in any global chart and deserve all the recognition they can get. Just because I don't think this list in particular doesn't make sense doesn't mean I'm salty about their success. It's so sad how some of you refuse to think critically or question things no matter how off they obviously are.

  • not me thinking ifpi was a personality type.

    ummm anyways 176427-seungmin-speak-gif

  • This thread contains 7 more posts that have been hidden for guests, please register yourself or login to continue reading.

Participate now!

Don’t have an account yet? Register yourself now and be a part of our community!