Last week, Shawn Mendes’ “Handwritten” leveraged an opening week sales total of 106,000 to debut atop the Billboard Top Album Sales chart.
“Handwritten” moved only 12,000 copies in its second week of release.
A decline of 89%, the second week drop represents the greatest for a chart-topping debut in the SoundScan era.
Significant, the drop was not unexpected. In a testament to its front-loaded nature, sources say “Handwritten” owed at least 70,000 of its 106,000 first week sales to pre-order purchases.
Insofar as it generated fewer than 40,000 broader market purchases during its first week of actual availability and does not yet have momentum from a hit single, it had no prayer of doing much better than 12,000 in week two.
— With Track Equivalent Albums (10 single sales = 1 album sale) and Streaming Equivalent Albums (1500 single sales = 1 album sale) included, “Handwritten” boasted a second week consumption total of 20,000 units. That represents an 83% decline from last week’s 119,000 mark and brings “Handwritten” down to #17 on the Billboard 200.
