Fastest-selling pop album in the UK by a male artist
Who
Ed Sheeran
What
672,000 total number
Where
United Kingdom ()
When

On the Official Albums Chart dated 16 March 2017, Ed Sheeran's (UK) third studio album, ÷ ("Divide"), debuted at No.1 with 672,000 first-week sales/downloads/streaming equivalent sales to become the third fastest-selling UK album of all time.

Adele's 25 (800,307 first-week copies sold in November 2015) and Oasis' Be Here Now (696,000 copies sold in three days in August 1997) are the only two UK albums with higher first-week sales than ÷.

Sheeran's first-week numbers comprised 62% physical sales, 26% full-album downloads and 12% streaming equivalent sales (amounting to 79,000 album streams – a new record for first-week UK album streams).

÷ sold more copies in its first week than the rest of the UK's Top 500 albums combined.

÷ is Sheeran's third chart-topping studio album, after + (2011) and x (2014). On the chart dated 16 March 2017, with ÷ at No.1, x at No.4 and + at No.5, Sheeran became the sixth act – after Elvis Presley (1957), The George Mitchell Minstrels (1962), Michael Jackson (2009), David Bowie (2016) and Prince (2016) – and only the third living act to post three simultaneous Top 5 albums.

Sheeran also broke Calvin Harris' (UK) previous record for the most Top 10 tracks from one album. With seven new entries on 16 March 2017 adding to his existing Top 10 hits "Shape of You", "Castle on the Hill" and "How Would You Feel (Paean)", Sheeran racked up 10 Top 10s from ÷ – one more than Harris achieved from his album 18 Months (2012).