Another day, another record-breaking sales accomplishment for Adele. The pop star’s third album, 25, has crossed the 5m sales mark in the US, making it the first album to sell more than 5m copies in a calendar year since her last album in 2011.
The figures come courtesy of Nielsen Music, which tracks music sales in the US, and were reported by Billboard on Thursday. According to Nielsen, Adele’s 25 has sold at least 510,000 copies in its third week of release, racking up more than 5m copies in total when added to the 4.49m copies sold in the album’s first two weeks of release since 20 November.
In order to hear the album, fans have needed to buy physical or digital copies of 25, a strategy which has undoubtedly contributed to its huge commercial success. At the time of writing, 25 was not available on streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music, although tech site the Verge reported in November that US listeners could be able to hear songs from 25 when they appear on Pandora’s digital radio service. Pandora users, however, would not be able to choose when to listen to songs from 25.
The album 25 sold more than 3m copies in the US in its first full week of release, breaking a first-week sales record previously held by ’N Sync’s album No String Attached. The boyband’s album sold 2.4m copies in its first week of release, back in the pre-streaming days of 2000.
