Update: As of this past week, the cumulative sales total for Pentatonix’s “That’s Christmas to Me” exceeds one million copies.
The a capella sensation’s Christmas album added an additional 203,000 copies to its total last week. A fourth straight weekly sales count in excess of 200,000, the mark was also enough to thrust the running total past the one million mark.
At the close of last week’s tracking period, that cumulative total stood at approximately 1.02 million.
Second for the week based on pure sales (behind only Taylor Swift’s “1989”), “That’s Christmas to Me” holds at #3 on the revamped Billboard 200. Nicki Minaj’s “The Pinkprint,” which sold fewer copies (194,000), saw a bigger boost from Track Equivalent Album and Streaming Equivalent Album data. It claims the #2 position on the Billboard 200 with 244,000 total units; the Pentatonix album is #3 with 214,000.
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For Pentatonix, the Christmas of 2014 will likely involve celebration over the fact that the sales total for its “That’s Christmas to Me” has passed the one million mark.
According to Hits Daily Double’s weekly sales report, an additional 203,000 copies of the a capella sensation’s Christmas album were purchased last week. Enough for a #2 position on Hits Daily Double’s sales chart, the count would also be enough to thrust “That’s Christmas to Me” into the million club.
Insofar as the sales data reported by Nielsen Soundscan/Billboard is generally viewed as more authoritative, no formal celebration should commence until that version of the sales report emerges Wednesday. But insofar as “That’s Christmas to Me” needed to move only about 178,000 copies this week (subject to slight disparities in rounding), the Billboard data would have to differ significantly (by at least 12%) to nix the album’s entry into the million sales club this week.
Irrefutably the season’s top-selling holiday album (and its second-hottest overall album behind Taylor Swift’s “1989”), “That’s Christmas to Me” was vying for a fourth consecutive sales week in excess of 200,000. If Hits’ data proves true, Pentatonix’s album not only achieved that impressive feat–but helped the band reach a career-defining milestone.
The act that got its first taste of fame on “The Sing-Off” and built its fanbase using YouTube videos and passionate word-of-mouth is responsible for a million-seller in an age of greatly deflated album sales.