Adele [25 Cover via Columbia Records]
Just over 24 hours remain until Adele’s eagerly awaited “25” arrives.
As it currently stands, industry insiders are expecting it to set the Soundscan-era opening week US sales record.
Per a Billboard report, Sony Music insiders expect “25” to sell 1.5 million physical CDs during its first week of release. Its opening week digital sales total, meanwhile, is expected to clock in at around 1 million (with iTunes accounting for 900,000).
At 2.5 million US copies in total, the projection calls for a bigger first week than *NSYNC’s “No Strings Attached.” The boy band’s 2000 album sold 2.416 million first-week copies in the United States. Since Nielsen Soundscan began tracking purchases in 1991, no album has sold better.
— In conjunction with this week’s launch, sources say Columbia Records will ship 3.6 million physical CDs to retailers. That represents the greatest first-week shipment since “No Strings Attached” shipped upwards of 4.2 million in its inaugural week of release.
Given that digital has become such a huge factor in recent years, the fact that the “25” physical shipment is even close to that of “No Strings Attached” speaks volumes about expectations for this release.