The world's best-selling music artists includes artists with claims of 50 million or more record sales in multiple third-party reliable sources. The sales figures within the provided sources include sales of albums, singles, compilation-albums, music videos as well as downloads of singles and full-length albums. The artists in the following tables are listed with both their claimed and certified sales figures and are ranked in descending order, with the highest claimed sales at the top. Artists with the same claimed sales are then ranked by certified units. Sales figures, such as those from Soundscan which are sometimes published by Billboard magazine, have not been included in the certified units column. All artists included on this list have their lowest available claimed figure(s) supported by at least 15% in certified units. That is why Cliff Richard, Alla Pugacheva, Charles Aznavour, Bing Crosby, Nana Mouskouri, Deep Purple, The Jackson 5 and A. R. Rahman have not been included on this list. The percentage amount of certified sales needed increases the newer the artist is, so artists that started appearing on the charts before 1975 are only expected to have their claimed figures supported by at least 15% in certified units. However newer artists such as Lady Gaga and Rihanna are expected to have their claimed figures supported by at least 60% in certified units. Certified units are sourced from available online databases of local music industry associations.

Dies ist eine Liste mit Schätzwerten von Interpreten mit den meisten Plattenverkäufen und umfasst den Single- und Albenverkauf weltweit.

Cet article contient une liste des plus importants vendeurs de disques à travers le monde.
Les albums et singles sont comptabilisés pour chaque artiste.

Det går inte att officiellt göra en lista över världens bäst säljande artister och grupper inom musikens värld, eftersom det inte finns någon organisation som räknar försäljningssiffrorna över hela världen. Den här listan kan ses som en lista över de artister som gör anspråk på att vara bäst-säljande. För att inte rangordna artisternas försäljningssiffror mer noggrant är de listade i alfabetisk ordning. Till försäljningssiffrorna räknas försäljning av både album och singlar samt från slutet av 1990-talet även legala nedladdningar med.

Gli artisti musicali con il maggior numero di vendite non possono essere elencati in modo ufficiale, in quanto non esiste un'organizzazione internazionale che abbia registrato le vendite globali musicali nel modo in cui, ad esempio, opera la RIAA negli Stati Uniti. Questa pagina contiene una lista di quegli artisti che, secondo fonti attendibili, abbiano venduto maggiormente nel mondo.