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.
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 "â ".
Oricon provides accumulated physical sales of all entries on its singles and albums charts (started in 1968 and 1970, respectively). 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, Hibari Misora, Yujiro Ishihara, and Hachiro Kasuga who had garnered most of their commercial success before Oricon was established in the late 1960s. The reported numbers like Mihashi's 100 million and Misora's 68 million records, 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). The best-selling artists by number of singles sold are AKB48 (73 million), B'z (35.8 million) in second place, Mr. Children (28.45 million) in third place, and Southern All Stars (25.179 million) in fourth place. 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.
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.
The long-standing second world's biggest music market have seen record sales dominated by their local music acts.
A selected group of Western acts have achieved certified units of over 4 million since Japan's music certification system inception by RIAJ in 1989. Prior RIAJ's certification system, various artists attained healthy sales. This include The Nolans whose sales were estimated at 12 million records, and French music conductor Paul Mauriat, with over 6 million records sold according to Billboard. Jeff Rovin wrote in Julio! (1985), that many of Julio Iglesias' albums sold over two million copies individually. In addition, Oricon's chart book (Oricon Album Chart Book: Complete Edition 1970âÂÂ2005) provides record sales.