Fastest-selling album worldwide by equivalent album units

Adele’s (UK) third studio album, 25, reportedly achieved global equivalent album units (physical sales and digital downloads) of 5.7 million in the week of its release on 20 November 2015, despite initially being unavailable for streaming and without the luxury of having 38 editions of the album available (27 physical and 11 digital), as was the case with the multi-faceted sales approach adopted by 25’s closest challenger, Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl. According to Republic Records, Showgirl amassed 5.5 million equivalent album units worldwide on 3–9 October 2025, falling just shy of Adele’s mark, although the two albums represent two contrasting sales strategies across two different eras of music consumption that are somewhat difficult to compare like for like.

The Life of a Showgirl racked up 1.5 billion global streams in its first week (representing the largest album debut of 2025), with “The Fate of Ophelia”, “Opalite” and “Elizabeth Taylor” proving to be the most popular tracks. 25 took a different approach, driving more fans into record stores to buy physical copies of the album without the ability to stream it at home or on the move.

In the US alone, Showgirl’s 4.002 million equivalent album units – the biggest week since Billboard’s Luminate sales-tracking era began in 1991 – comprised 3.479 million traditional album sales (across all 38 available editions) and 522,600 streaming equivalent albums, equating to 680.9 million on-demand official streams. By comparison, 25 did 3.482 equivalent album units and 3.378 million in traditional sales.