Adele's newest album, 25, sold 2.43 million copies in just over three days, breaking the single-week U.S. sales record held by *NSYNC, according to Nielsen Music. *NSYNC's No Strings Attached sold 2.41 million albums in a single week during the height of the CD era in 2000. Nielsen only began recording point-of-sale numbers in 1991; album sales prior to that weren't recorded based on how many were sold in a given week.
"Hello," the first single off 25, sold 1.1 million copies in a week and its music video has been watched more than 400 million times. The album is estimated by industry experts to sell 2.9 million copies by the end of the week, perhaps in part fueled by the fact that it isn't available to stream on services like Spotify or Apple Music.
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