Can she do it? It looks like she probably already has.
Having demolished the all-time week one album sales record in the US with her third LP, 25, Adele has a new target in her sights: 3m album sales in a week.
MBW analysis suggests she’s either there, or pretty much there, with a day to spare.
According to new data from retail monitor BuzzAngle, the British star’s 25 sold approximately 2.8m copies in its first five days on sale in the US – that’s to the end of play on Tuesday (November 24). Digital has taken 52% of sales, with physical on 48%.
The figures mean that 25 sold around 240,000 further copies on Tuesday alone.
The really optimistic news for Adele, her US label Sony and September Management? Tuesday’s haul represented only a tiny decline ( -7.7%) on the 260,000 US copies that 25 sold the day before (Monday, November 23).
These stats bode very well, even suggesting that it’s entirely possible Adele has already passed 3m sales – with a day to spare, chart week-wise – on Wednesday (November 25).
25 could have afforded a 17% drop on Tuesday’s daily number – from 240k to 200k – and still surpassed the milestone.
Whatever perspective you take on 25’s release (and its largely non-streaming strategy), this is a truly gob-smacking commercial achievement in 2015 – especially against a backdrop of industry pessimism around the power of the traditional album format.
And while the US understandably gets the majority of the focus, 25 is doing jaw-dropping business in other pockets of the planet, too.
Sources in Canada tell MBW that the album has now surpassed the territory’s own week one album record – held by national treasure, Celine Dion.
And in the UK, the Official Chart week one sales record – last set by Oasis’s Be Here Now in 1997, after just three days on sale – should also fall to Ms. Adkins. She’s looking likely to sell 800k+ in the region.
In both Canada, the UK and elsewhere, 25 is a completely independent release, handled by Beggars/XL in tandem with local distribution partners such as [PIAS].
In the US, though, Sony’s Columbia is doing the legwork, having licensed the record.
The previous week one album record-holder in the US is NSYNC, whose No Strings Attached topped 2.4m sales in March 2000 – a figure that 25 reached within four days on sale.Music Business Worldwide
