Adele’s '25' to be fastest 2 million-selling album in UK chart history

Adele’s '25' is today set to become the fastest 2 million-selling album in UK music history, smashing all previous records.

By last night (December 17), the singer’s third album had reached 1.970 million sales, having sold between 46,000 and 61,000 copies a day for the past week. Barring a massive (and highly unlikely) collapse in sales, it will hit the 2 million mark sometime this afternoon – just its 29th day on sale.

In comparison, Adele’s '21' (the second biggest selling studio album in history) took 13 weeks to reach the 2 million mark. At its current rate of sales, '21' is likely to pass the 2.5 million sales by the end of the year – also in record time and putting it into the Top 40 biggest selling studio albums of all time in the UK.

Chart records indicate that the closest rival to Adele is Robson & Jerome’s 1995 debut album. Records from the time indicate that it took 42 days to reach the 2 million landmark. Unsurprisingly, 25 continues to lead this week’s Official Albums Chart, logging a fourth consecutive week at Number 1.

Elsewhere on this week’s tally, Elvis Presley scores his strongest sales week yet with his 'If I Can Dream Album', notching up combined sales of 121,000 for its seventh week on the tally, climbing a place to Number 2 this week.

Coldplay’s 'A Head Full Of Dreams' slips to 3, Justin Bieber’s 'Purpose' holds at 4 and Jess Glynne’s 'I Cry When I Laugh' completes this week’s Top 5.

With few new releases out this week, there are no new entries in this week’s Top 40, though a number of albums have re-entered: Hozier’s self-titled debut (up 20 places to 50), Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott’s Wisdom Laughter And Lines (up 19 spots to 35), ELO’s All Over The World (up 5 to 37), and Ben Haenow’s self-titled (up 4 to 40).

Watch Adele performing live here: