Quote:
Originally posted by £100
You also, however, have to take into consideration market penetration. A country like Russia has quite a large population of 140+ million, meaning that the US population is only 2.2x the population of Russia. Selling, say, 10.000 purchased copies in Russia could not be compared to selling 22.000 copies in the US. The scale in Russia's case should be much larger than just 2x because consumers there do not buy music products to the same extent Americans do. Another example would be India, where we'd have to multiply by a number <1, but that figure would be quite inaccurate. Statistically, per capita is only the measure we have for comparisons but, outside of western nations with healthy music industries, is not such a useful aide in gauging 'impresive-ness' of sales.
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Yes, this is exactly my point. That is why a platinum certification is set at a certain level. It conveys a comparatively rare achievement and takes in to consideration the unique music market that exists within a given country.
I'll use another example -- box office in China. China has over 3x the population of the U.S., but due to a number of factors (including the prevalence of piracy and widespread poverty) films make far less there than they do in the U.S. Avatar made $760m here, but "only" $200m in China. I say "only" sarcastically because that is far and away the most a film has ever grossed in China, nearly tripling the previous record holder.
The point is if you try to make a direct comparison on a per capita basis it can result in some misleading conclusions (e.g., Avatar's performance in China looking less impressive when it was anything but). You have to take individual market factors in to account, which is what certification levels do.
