In this paper we give exact values of the best $n$-term approximation widths of diagonal operators between $ell_p(mathbb{N})$ and $ell_q(mathbb{N})$ with $0<p,qleq infty$. The result will be applied to obtain the asymptotic constants of best $n$-term approximation widths of embeddings of function spaces with mixed smoothness by trigonometric system.