While final data for the October 23-29 tracking week has not yet been published, enough insight is available to report that “Hello” broke the single-week US digital sales record.
And it did so by a comfortable margin.
Reports emerging from Columbia Records sources (and first shared by Hits Magazine) indicate that “Hello” sold in the general neighborhood of 1 million US copies during the October 23-29 tracking week. The total easily breaks the previous weekly record of 636,000, which was held by Flo Rida’s smash “Right Round.”
More precise data, which will officially confirm the new record, should emerge by Monday.
“Hello” was additionally downloaded over 250,000 times in conjunction with pre-orders for Adele’s “25” album. Those “instant gratification” downloads do not count toward the song’s sales total, but they provide further evidence of its dominant first week.
(Editor’s Note: It appears the “750,000 songs in three days” figure initially reported by Columbia Records included the “instant gratification” downloads)