Oricon
Oricon Inc. (株式会社オリコン, Kabushiki-gaisha Orikon?), established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan. It started as Original Confidence Inc. (株式会社オリジナルコンフィデンス, Kabushiki-gaisha Orijinaru Konfidensu?), which was founded by Sōkō Koike in November 1967 and became known for its music charts. Oricon Inc. was originally set up as a subsidiary of Original Confidence and took over the latter’s Oricon record charts in April 2002.
They are compiled using data drawn from some 39,700 retail outlets (as of April 2011) and provide sales rankings of music CDs, DVDs, electronic games, and other entertainment products based on weekly tabulations. Results are announced every Tuesday and published in Oricon Style by subsidiary Oricon Entertainment Inc. The group also lists panel survey-based popularity ratings for television commercials on its official website.
Read more about Oricon: History, Policy, Controversy, Shareholders, Best Selling Singles of All Time, Best Selling Albums of All Time