I love the copy & paste method. :)

Quote:
Can someone calculate if letsay she sells an average of 45k albums every week, how long till she hits 4x platinum?
She'll hit it on the week ending January 29, 2006... I think she'll hit it much earlier...



(I wrote this back in July, so I had to update some of the numbers)

As with all big numbers (1.35M left to hit 4M sold), breaking it down makes everything realistic and conceivable... (note: these are fairly conservative hypothetical estimates, so if anything, she should do better than what I've figured below)

September: For Kelly to hit 3M by the 1st week of September (ending Sept. 4th), she'd have to sell 340k in 7 wks which averages out to under 48.6k/wk. She has averaged over 63k over the past 7 wks. 50k/wk is very reasonable (almost too easy) at the steady pace she's going and the fact that her songs just don't die out. The AOL concert and the VMA's next month should at least allow her to maintain her pace, if not an increase in sales. (CHECK... she had over 3,057,000+ by the 1st week of Sept.)

Thanksgiving: The next sales period I broke down is between September and Thanksgiving, 12 weeks total. I didn't want to factor in BOY at all since it could range anywhere from a decent/moderate hit to a career defining hit (plus I want to stay conservative). Now realistically, her sales may decline from 50k/wk down to 30k/wk over this time... but let's say her average is 35k/wk over this time period, she'll be at 3,420,000 by November 27th. (CHECK... she'll only have to sell 23k/wk to hit 3.42mil by the 27th... a steady decline of 10% each week would put her at 3,496,000+... a steady decline of 5% each week would put her at 3,573,000+ ... 35k/wk would put her at 3.53mil)

Holiday shopping: 4 weeks between Nov. 28th and Christmas. Looking back at last year's holiday sales where roughly 15-20 albums were doing at least 100-150+ weekly (over 200k/wk as Xmas got nearer) I see NO REASON why Breakaway won't sell like hotcakes. I put up various scenarios ranging from pessimistic to optimistic:

Updated to reflect current projections by CHRISTMAS:
50k/wk - 3.73M
75k/wk - 3.83M
100k/wk - 3.93M
125k/wk - 4.03M
150k/wk - 4.13M

Factors I didn't consider above which all would only benefit her sales:
- possible talk show performances in Oct. to promote BOY
- American Music Awards in November
- Grammy nominations the first week of December
- Radio Music Awards in December

So it's quite reasonable for Breakaway to hit 4M by year's end, however now let's talk about the little song called BOY... if it lives up to it's potential and becomes the monster hit that many believe it can be,
(which is becoming more and more true with each passing week) that would push her towards 4M even faster than imagined... And to think that that's only for the end of 2005...