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This article was first published 10 years ago

10 best selling products of all time

Last updated on: July 07, 2014 17:43 IST

Image: Playboy Gamer Next Door, Jo Garcia attends the 2012 Playboy Party.
Photographs: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

Most of the best selling products in the world have been revolutionary. They have changed our lives and transformed the product category they belong to.

For example, before Sony came up with PlayStation, video games console were cartridge based. Sony relied on CD-ROM and that changed gaming forever. Games files could be large enough to support 3D and full-motion video.

Similarly iPhone changed smartphones forever.

To determine the best-selling products of all-time, 24/7 Wall St. ‘reviewed categories of products widely purchased by consumers and identified individual products that had the highest sales in their category’.

Click NEXT to see top 10 selling products of all time…

Tags: Sony , CD-ROM

10 best selling products of all time

Image: A woman plays Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) while a booth assistant (R) advises her during Tokyo Game Show.
Photographs: Kiyoshi Ota/Reuters

PlayStation

Category: Video game console

Total sales: 344 million units

Parent company: Sony

The PlayStation gaming consoles are created and developed by Sony.

The PlayStation 2 is the best-selling home console to date, having sold over 155 million units as of December 2012, according to Wikipedia. It’s latest version, PlayStation 4, also holds the record for the fastest selling console in history; about a million were sold in the first 24 hours.

10 best selling products of all time

Image: Lipitor tablets sit in a tray at a Pharmacy.
Photographs: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Lipitor

Category: Pharmaceutical

Total sales: $141 billion

Parent company: Pfizer

Liptor is a drug that helps in lowering blood cholesterol and used in prevention of cardiovascular disease.

Tags: Pfizer

10 best selling products of all time

Image: Models stand beside the Toyota Corolla cars during the 2014 Beijing International Automotive Exhibition.
Photographs: Feng Li/Getty Images

Corolla

Category: Vehicle

Total sales: 40.7 million units

Parent company: Toyota (NYSE: TM)

Introduced in 1966, Toyota Corolla became the best selling nameplate globally in 1997, surpassing Volkswagen Beetle. The car is in its 11th generation right now.

10 best selling products of all time

Image: Kasey Darling of the Charles Koch Institute poses for photographs with people dressed as characters from Star Wars.
Photographs: Somodevilla/Getty Images

Star Wars

Category: Movies

Total sales: $4.6 billion

Parent company: 20th Century Fox

When the first film of the Star Wars franchisee was released, viewers spell-bounded. Prior to Star Wars, film was comedy or romance or drama. The Star Wars with its special effects amazed and fascinate people.

“The ongoing Star Wars saga may lose its status as the all time best-selling movie franchise to Walt Disney’s Marvel Franchise. The Avengers broke box office records, grossing $203.4 million on its opening weekend,” says 24/7 Wall St.

10 best selling products of all time

Image: Women use an Apple iPad tablet computer during the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Photographs: Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images

iPad

Category: Tablet

Total sales: 211 million units

Parent company: Apple

Apple actually started developing the iPad before the iPhone but temporarily shelved the idea upon realising that the same concept would work just as well in a mobile phone.

Since Apple launched iPad, the sales of laptops have started dwindling. The company still holds the largest share in the tablet market.

Tags: 1

10 best selling products of all time

Image: Japanese video game Designer Shigeru Miyamoto poses with men dressed as Mario Bros characters during a tribute in Gijon.
Photographs: Felix Ausin Ordonez/Reuters

Mario Bros. Franchise

Category: Video game franchise

Total sales: 262 million units

Parent company: Nintendo

Mario franchisee consists of video games, television series and a feature film that Nintendo published and produced.

A designer named Shigeru Miyamoto created the character Mario for the arcade game Donkey Kong.

The franchise has spawned over 200 games of various genre. it includes series such as Super Mario, Mario Kart, Mario Party, Mario Tennis, and Mario Golf, according to Wikipedia.

10 best selling products of all time

Image: Michael Jackson.
Photographs: Begoon/Wikimedia Common

Michael Jackson’s Thriller

Category: Album

Total sales: 70 million units

Parent company: Epic records

In just over a year of its release Thriller became - and currently remains - the best-selling album of all time. The album has also won a record-breaking eight Grammy Awards in 1984.

The album’s sales helped Michael Jackson break down racial barriers in pop music.

10 best selling products of all time

Image: Israeli Harry Potter fans wait to pay for his copy of JK Rowling's new book.
Photographs: David Silverman/Getty Images

Harry Potter

Category: Book

Total sales: 450 million units

Parent company: Scholastic (U.S. publisher)

The series of seven fantasy novels by JK Rowlings revolves around the titular character. The first book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released in June 1997.

The last four books have set records as the fastest-selling books in history, with the final instalment selling approximately 11 million copies in the United States within the first twenty-four hours of its release, according to Wikipedia.

10 best selling products of all time

Image: Singer and songwriter Taylor Swift takes a picture with her iPhone while peforming at ABC News' Good Morning America Times Square Studio.
Photographs: Mike Coppola/Getty Images

iPhone

Category: Smartphone

Total sales: 516 million units

Parent company: Apple

This is one devise that really revolutionised its product category. These days we take the touch phones for granted. iPhone was the first device that allowed us to use touch phones by directly putting out fingers to the screen. Earlier touch screens required stylus.

There are many more fascinating things that Apple first introduced in a phone that didn’t exist earlier. Take the app universe that Apple created.

Tags: 1

10 best selling products of all time

Image: A young competitor attends the World Rubik's Cube Championship in Budapest.
Photographs: Laszlo Balogh/Reuters

Rubik’s Cube

Category: Toy

Total sales: 350 million units

Parent company: Seven Towns Ltd.

Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Erno Rubik invented this puzzle in 1974. Originally called Magic Cube, the inventor licensed it to Ideal Toy Corp. to sell it.

Rubik had originally built the cube to make his understand 3D objects.