First UK group to debut at No.1 in USA with debut album

Boy band One Direction (Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson), who finished third in the 2010 series of the TV talent show The X Factor (UK, 2004–present), became the first UK-based group to make a chart-topping bow on the US Billboard 200 albums chart when Up All Night debuted at No.1 with first-week sales of 176,000 on 31 March 2012. One Direction's achievement betters the US chart starts of both The Beatles (debut album Introducing... The Beatles initially failed to chart in the US and their first album to chart, Meet the Beatles!, debuted at No.92 before climbing to No.3 and then No.1 in February 1964) and Spice Girls' Spice album, which debuted at No.6 in 1997 to become the highest-charting debut album by a UK group in the US.