Official: Adele Breaks *NSYNC's Single-Week U.S. Album Sales Record
After processing the first sales reports from Monday, Nov. 23, the album has already sold at least 2,433,000 in pure album sales in slightly more than three days. That sum beat the single-week record for an album since Nielsen began tracking sales in 1991, set by *NSYNC’s No Strings Attached, when it debuted with 2,416,000 in the week ending March 26, 2000.
Nielsen Music began tracking point-of-sale music purchases in 1991. Prior to 1991, there was no authoritative music sales tracking service in the U.S. and thus, it was mostly unknown how many copies of an album or song/single were sold in a single week.
The sales tracking week ends at the close of business on Thursday, Nov. 26. Billboard is scheduled to report 25's debut week sales on Sunday, Nov. 29, once Nielsen has finished processing its weekly data.