Adele's '25' Sales Surpass 8 Million in the U.S.

Nielsen Music began electronically tracking point-of-sale music purchases in 1991, the same year Billboard started using the company’s data to compile the Billboard 200 albums chart.

25 remains the biggest-selling album released since Adele’s own 21, which bowed in 2011. The latter has sold 11.5 million, and is the 10^th largest selling album in Nielsen Music history. 25 was released on Nov. 20, 2015 through XL Recordings/Columbia Records. It is Adele’s third studio album and has spent eight nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Since Nielsen Music began tracking sales in 1991, there are 46 albums that have sold at least 8 million copies.

Further, Adele is the third solo woman to have tallied two 8 million sellers since 1991. Celine Dion and Britney Spears are the other leading ladies: Dion did it with three albums -- Falling Into You (released in 1996; 10.8 million), Let’s Talk About Love (1997; 9.6 million) and All the Way: A Decade of Song (1999, 8.1 million) -- while Spears scored with …Baby One More Time (1999, 10.6 million) and Oops!…I Did It Again (2000, 9.2 million).