Niall Horan lands first solo No. 1 album on Billboard

[October 31, 2017]  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Niall Horan scored his first chart-topping album as a solo artist on Monday, the third member of boy band One Direction to achieve the feat.

Horan's album "Flicker" sold 152,000 album units in its first week from music sales and streaming activity, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan.

It follows on the heels of Harry Styles' self-titled solo album debut in May and Zayn Malik's "Mind of Mine" debut last year, both of which opened at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.

After Malik left One Direction in 2015, the band went on hiatus and each of its remaining members released solo music.

The Billboard 200 album chart tallies units from album sales, song sales (10 songs equal one album) and streaming activity (1,500 streams equal one album).

New debuts in the top ten of the Billboard 200 album chart this week included rappers Future and Young Thug's collaborative album "Super Slimey" at No. 2, country singer Chris Young's "Losing Sleep" at No. 5 and country singer Darius Rucker at No. 8 with "When Was The Last Time."

On the Digital Songs chart, which measures online single sales, Taylor Swift's latest single "Gorgeous" from her upcoming album debuted at No. 1 with 68,000 copies sold.

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy)

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