(CelebrityAccess News Service) — The week of Feb 9 – Feb 15 represents the biggest selling individual week excluding a "holiday season" week (November- December), since SoundScan began tracking point of purchase record sales in 1991, with album sales exceeding 17,000,000 units. Highly anticipated product releases, Valentine's Day, and the Grammy Awards contributed to the record breaking sales week.
2004 sales facts:
– The week of Valentine's Day is traditionally one of the strongest selling weeks for the music industry, excluding the holiday season (November – December);
– The week of February 9-15 is the highest Valentine's Day week since the inception of SoundScan of the Top 200 Current Album sales totaling more than 8.1 million units, which is 2 million more units sold since the last highest selling Valentine's Day week in February 2001;
– Year to date overall album sales are up 13% over last year;
– Total album unit sales are up 25% over same week last year:
– Top 200 current album sales are up 37% over same week last year;
– The week of February 9-15 represents the first week that "digital track" sales have exceeded 2 million downloads in one week (2.1 million downloads);
– Norah Jones' Feels Like Home has the strongest debut week on The Top 200 Chart (with sales of 1,022,000) since NSync's Celebrity debuted in July 29, 2001 (with sales of 1,879,000).
–Bob Grossweiner and Jane Cohen
