First week sales forecast for Ed Sheeran’s ÷ upgraded to 500k

Ed Sheeran is tearing up the rule book. His album ÷ (Divide) has shot out of the gates in a chart rampage that has seen music industry executives and retailers upgrade their forecasts for the album’s first week sales.

It could be a massive 500,000 in both the UK and the US.

In the UK that would be the biggest breakout since Adele’s 25 moved 800,307 in its first seven weeks, breaking the previous record of 696,000 held by Oasis’ Be Here Now.

In its first three days the new Sheeran has already sold 431,702, according to the Official Charts Company, and topping the midweek charts. 63% of the sales are physical, 31% are digital, and streaming equivalent sales are 6%.

The midweek chart sees Sheeran’s three albums in the Top 5. His second album x is at #4 (after notching up an extra 12,081 units) and debut + is at #5 with fresh sales of 9,646 copies.

Sheeran also occupies nine of the Top 10 singles in the midweek chart. All 16 tracks on ÷ are in the Top 21.

It would give him the double whammy of a simultaneous #1 album and #1 single, as Shape of You is set to hang in at top spot for a ninth week.

The album is already the sixth fastest selling album of all time in the UK. By the end of this week it is expected to push Take That’s 2010 album Progress (which had first week sales of 518,601) from third spot.

In the US, ÷ is now expected to move between 450,000 to 500,000 to come in at #1, which will be the biggest debut of the year. Initially music retailers thought it would do 300,000. 

The last album to amass over 400,000 units in America was J. Cole’s 4 Your Eyez Only in the last week of 2016. 

Sheeran continues to break streaming records; ÷ got 56.73 million global streams on Spotify alone. It beat the old record by The Weeknd’s Starboy.

On March 3, Shape Of You set a new record for plays of a single track on Spotify in 24 hours with 10.12 million. The previous record was, well, Shape Of You – it set a new record 7.94 million streams when it was released on January 6.

Sheeran is currently the most-streamed artist on Spotify with more than 45.5 monthly listeners.

This week, Sheeran also tipped that he will be recording once again with close friend Taylor Swift, and fans could possibly hear new music from Swift this year. Her last new music was in 2014.

But Sheeran told the BBC, "Taylor [Swift] isn’t going to be releasing until probably the end of this year – Christmas is the smartest time to release because that’s when everyone buys records. So I’ve got a full year of just all Ed, all the time."

The two released a single Everything Has Changed in 2013. They became close friends after Swift saw him perform in Nashville and asked to meet him.

She took him out on tour of the US, which he says helped him break America. He got a Red tattoo on his left arm as a thank you to her.