How many copies Dragon Ball sold to the total? PS:worldwide!

[Son Kai]

I was curious, I was in a discussion,and a friend of mine said that Dragon Ball sold 230 million copies worldwide, I disagreed and said it was 350 million,so,does anyone know how many copies Dragon Ball actually sold in total? Can give me a reliable source to support this?
And after all, the manga One Piece really exceeded the number of worldwide sales of Dragon Ball?
Thanks guys

[TheLegend23]

Your boy is actually correct bro . 230 Million Copies sold worldwide.

[sintzu]

Does anyone know how many copies Dragon Ball actually sold in total? Can give me a reliable source to support this?
And after all, the manga One Piece really exceeded the number of worldwide sales of Dragon Ball?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_manga

[sangofe]

Your boy is actually correct bro . 230 Million Copies sold worldwide.

How is possible to even track that down with all the re-releases and new releases going on here and there?

[rereboy]

Your boy is actually correct bro . 230 Million Copies sold worldwide.

How is possible to even track that down with all the re-releases and new releases going on here and there?

Companies know their business and keep figures to see how they are doing in sales. Its just a matter of exchanging info between companies.

[sangofe]

Your boy is actually correct bro . 230 Million Copies sold worldwide.

How is possible to even track that down with all the re-releases and new releases going on here and there?

Companies know their business and keep figures to see how they are doing in sales. Its just a matter of exchanging info between companies.

I'm not so sure Glénat for example know their numbers over all these years and re-releases!

[rereboy]

I'm not so sure Glénat for example know their numbers over all these years and re-releases!

If they don't, then they are a very poor company. That's essential to determine how well the products are selling and to analyze and study the audience for future releases.

[Son Kai]

I refer to the total up to now, with all the re-releases.
And added worldwide sales, not just those that occurred in Japan

[rereboy]

I refer to the total up to now, with all the re-releases.
And added worldwide sales, not just those that occurred in Japan

The wikipedia link that was posted includes the total worldwide manga sales. Dragon Ball just doesn't touch One Piece in terms of sale, they are crazy about it in Japan. Just in japanese sales, One Piece has more sales than Dragon Ball worldwide.

Of course this is in terms of manga. I have no idea about anime.

[Hitiro]

I think it's also important to consider that One Piece has more volumes than Dragon Ball. So that is going to be an contributing factor as well. If 10 people buy each volume of Dragon Ball then you get 420 copies sold. But if 10 people buy each volume of One Piece then 760 copies are sold. If you think about it the fact that Dragon Ball is trailing behind only by a 115 million copies despite only having almost a half of the volumes as One piece is actually pretty amazing.

[Son Kai]

I disagree, Dragon Ball was re-released several times and several reliable websites say global sales reached 350 million, I wanted to see a reliable site that says this

[Hitiro]

I disagree, Dragon Ball was re-released several times and several reliable websites say global sales reached 350 million, I wanted to see a reliable site that says this

Well, the site is quoting the numbers from the site Toei put up for Battle of Gods. On the site in Japanese it reads 230 million copies sold worldwide. It is 2015 not though. So maybe that figure is a little inaccurate now due to this being said in 2013. But that was the figure during 2013 at least.

[rereboy]

I disagree, Dragon Ball was re-released several times and several reliable websites say global sales reached 350 million, I wanted to see a reliable site that says this

Toei stated themselves on their website that Dragon Ball sold 230 million copies worldwide when they were promoting Battle of the Gods. There's no more official than that.

I think it's also important to consider that One Piece has more volumes than Dragon Ball. So that is going to be an contributing factor as well. If 10 people buy each volume of Dragon Ball then you get 420 copies sold. But if 10 people buy each volume of One Piece then 760 copies are sold. If you think about it the fact that Dragon Ball is trailing behind only by a 115 million copies despite only having almost a half of the volumes as One piece is actually pretty amazing.

That is a important factor but you are forgetting other important factors. Dragon Ball is more than 10 years older than One Piece, which means that during those years, One Piece sold zero, while Dragon Ball sold a lot. And when One Piece came out, Dragon Ball continued to be sold. In short, One Piece has the number of volumes advantage, but Dragon Ball has the years advantage. And One Piece still sold a lot more.

[Hitiro]

That is a important factor but you are forgetting other important factors. Dragon Ball is more than 10 years older than One Piece, which means that during those years, One Piece sold zero, while Dragon Ball sold a lot. And when One Piece came out, Dragon Ball continued to be sold. In short, One Piece has the number of volumes advantage, but Dragon Ball has the years advantage. And One Piece still sold a lot more.

Right, but you're looking at it from the standpoint that Dragon Ball should have more because it has been around for longer. But if you scale this to how many people bought copies and assume that every individual that bought a copy bought every volume then actually Dragon Ball has a lot more fans. Obviously we can't assume that all the copies were of fans who bought the whole set of manga's. But there would be a large majority who did. I mean assuming the best possible scenario that every copy translates to an individual who has bought every volume then the figures look like this;

Dragon Ball: 5.47 million fans.
One Piece: 4.53 million fans.

Therefore Dragon Ball actually is ahead if you factor in single or multiple volume sales because that only increases the amount of fans that bought only fractions of the manga. Because if you factor single or multiple volume sales as opposed to every volume sales then it would boost the amount of fans again. And if we correlate the above numbers and pretend that Dragon Ball also had 76 volumes(Because obviously there will be fans who want all of the volumes.) Then the copies sold would look like this;

Dragon Ball: 416 million copies sold.
One Piece: 345 million copies sold. (190 million if we were saying that One Piece only had 42 volumes)

If we're dealing with hypothetical's here then if whoever made created the volumes had distributed the manga over 76 volumes Dragon Ball may have easily stayed ahead of One Piece until One Piece either has a couple more years or produces more volumes because I don't think it's over yet, is it? It is pretty easy to pin the reason Dragon Ball is behind in copies sold right now down to the amount of volumes there are.

[rereboy]

You are completely over-simplifying the issue into one single factor. Like I showed you, there are other factors.

If you really want to reduce it to that level, then it goes like this:

Dragon Ball -> 230.000.000 / 42 = 5.476.190 per volume
Black Jack -> 176.000.000 / 17 = 10.352.941 per volume

Black Jack outsells Dragon Ball almost 2 to 1, according to just that criteria.

[Hitiro]

Well yeah, I know I'm over-simplifying it. I pretty much said that in my post. I'm just pointing out that it is entirely possible that Dragon Ball would still be ahead with as many volumes as One Piece currently has. So the copies sold isn't exactly a vary fair comparison really. Because a lot more people may have enjoyed Dragon Ball than One Piece but One Piece just has the advantage because those fans have bought all the current volumes.

[rereboy]

There's actual detailed info on One Piece sales, btw:





Here's the above data translated, with some additional info:

1997, 1st year - 300k copies printed, 1 volume, 300k copies per volume! Note that 300k is the first print of volume 1, because it was released in 24 of December, a second print would be accounted in the next year.
1998, 2nd year - 6 Million copies printed, 6 volumes, 1 Million copies per volume.
1999, 3rd year - 17 Million copies printed, 11 volumes, 1.55 Million copies per volume.
2000, 4th year - 37 Million copies printed, 16 volumes, 2.31 Million copies per volume. An anime boost of 767k copies per volume printed, and this only if we don't account the 2 first months of anime boost in the previous year.
2001, 5th year - 54 Million copies printed, 21 volumes, 2.57 Million copies per volume.
2002, 6th year - 73 Million copies printed, 26 volumes, 2.81 Million copies per volume.
2003, 7th year - 90 Million copies printed, 31 volumes, 2.90 Million copies per volume.
2004, 8th year - 99 Million copies printed, 35 volumes, 2.83 Million copies per volume. First decrease in the average of volumes per volume, this represents the year of the end of Skypiea, Davy Back Fight and the beginning of Water 7.
2005, 9th year - 112 Million copies printed, 40 volumes, 2.80 Million copies per volume. Reached 100 Million copies printed in February of 2005 with volume 36. With this One Piece is the fastest title to reach 100 Million copies in print. Dragon Ball was only able to reach 100 Million after its ending and it run for 11 years and with 42 volumes.
2006, 10th year - 125 Million copies printed, 44 volumes, 2.84 Million copies per volume.
2007, 11th year - 139 Million copies printed, 48 volumes, 2.90 Million copies per volume.
2008, 12th year - 153 Million copies printed, 52 volumes, 2.94 Million copies per volume.
2009, 13th year - 177 Million copies printed, 56 volumes, 3.16 Million copies per volume.
2010, 14th year - 216 Million copies printed, 60 volumes, 3.60 Million copies per volume. Reached 200 Million copies printed in November of 2010 with volume 60.
2011, 15th year - 257 Million copies printed, 64 volumes, 4.02 Million copies per volume.
2012, 16th year - 281 Million copies printed, 68 volumes, 4.13 Million copies per volume.
2013, 17th year - 302 Million copies printed, 72 volumes, 4.20 Million copies per volume. Reached 300 Million copies printed in November of 2013 with volume 72. First on only title reaching 300 Million copies printed!
2014, 18th year - 320 Million copies printed, 76 volumes, 4.21 Million copies per volume.

[Hitiro]

Interesting. Considering that it is the fastest to reach 100 million copies. But then Dragon Ball only reached 40 volumes by its tenth year. So if we go by a linear scale it is understandable why it is slightly behind in the copies in print considering the volumes were slower to release for it. I would imagine if Dragon Ball had reached 40 volumes by its ninth year it would also have 100 million copies in print by its ninth year. If you follow this then if by the 18th year One piece only had 42 volumes then it would only have 176 million copies printed putting it under Dragon Ball still. Then whether it were to surpass Dragon Ball would be debatable in the further few years after. It would all depend on if it kept selling at a reasonable pace or came to a stop. Each volume would have to exceed 5 million copies per volume to make up for the 60 million copies gap. Not unreasonable I guess.

[rereboy]

I would imagine if Dragon Ball had reached 40 volumes by its ninth year it would also have 100 million copies in print by its ninth year.

Why...? It only reached it after it ended and we don't even have the data to know when exactly that was. For all we know it could have been considerably after it ended, while One Piece did it in its volume 36.

[Hitiro]

Why...? It only reached it after it ended and we don't even have the data to know when exactly that was. For all we know it could have been considerably after it ended, while One Piece did it in its volume 36.

After it ending would have been the tenth year( of Tankobon releases, 11th year of serialisation) because volumes 40, 41 and 42 all came out in the tenth year. The manga would have ceased to be published in Shounen Jump by then as it wouldn't make sense that Volume 42 would be coming out while the manga was still going on. It would mean that the chapters coming out in the Weekly Shounen Jump were behind the Tankobon. Which would be incredibly weird. Unless after it "ended" refers to something else?