Hello from the top of the charts. Adele’s album 25 debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, shattering records with a whopping 3.38 million copies in its first week in the U.S.
According to Billboard, 25 earns the largest single sales week for an album since Nielsen began tracking point-of-sale music purchases in 1991. Additionally, 25 is the first album to sell more than 3 million copies in a week in Nielsen history.
25 beat the previous one-week sales record held by *NSYNC’s No Strings Attached, which opened with 2.42 million copies in March 2000. 25 is the 20th album to sell at least one million copies in a week, and already the biggest selling album of 2015 (surpassing Taylor Swift’s 1989).
25 marks Adele’s second No. 1 following her 2011 album 21, which spent 24 non-consecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200. It has sold 11.2 million in the U.S. to date.
Fresh off the album’s blockbuster debut, Adele is set to hit the road on a 36-date European tour, launching in February.
[rap-up]
