The monster sales for the first three days mean Adele will
break the first week sales record currently held by boy band
NSync's 2000 album "No Strings Attached," which opened with 2.4
million copies.
Adele's independent U.K. label XL Recordings last week decided
to withhold "25" from online streaming platforms such as Apple
Inc's Apple Music service, privately owned Spotify and Google
Play.
The strong three-day sales indicate the lack of streaming
availability did not hurt the album, which was released on
Friday, and is the first since her 2011 release "21", which won
six Grammys and sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.
"25" racked up more than 900,000 sales in Apple's U.S. iTunes
store on its first day, Billboard said.
The much-anticipated album has been driven by the success of its
lead single, the heartbreak ballad "Hello," which debuted last
month and has sold more than 2.5 million digital copies. The
song has been No. 1 on Billboard's Digital Songs chart for four
consecutive weeks.
It is increasingly rare for an artist to top the 1 million
opening week sales with a new album because fans are driven more
and more to online streaming to consume music.
Taylor Swift's "1989" album was the last record to achieve the
milestone when it opened with nearly 1.3 million copies last
year.
Sales data for the first full week will be released by Nielsen
on Nov. 30.
(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Lisa
Shumaker)
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