iTunes sales of Beatles albums and songs

From Apple Insider: A week after adding the Beatles to iTunes, Apple has sold 450,000 albums and 2 million songs.

According to a report by Billboard, Apple sold 119,000 albums in the US, including 13,000 digital box sales (which count as a single album in the US figures; the global sales numbers appear to count each box set component as an individual album sale).

The Beatles’ best selling album on iTunes in the US was 1969’s “Abbey Road,” while the top selling song was that album’s track, “Here Comes the Sun.”

The report compared the Beatles’ sales favorably against first-week digital track sales for superstar acts, which “this year typically ranged from 100,000 to 300,000 per title, while digital album sales ranged anywhere from 40,000 to 278,000 for Taylor Swift’s blockbuster third album ‘Speak Now.'”

Meanwhile in the UK, “Music Week” reported:

32 Beatles recordings make the Top 200, with four of them in the published Top 75. Hey Jude leads the way at number 40 (7,006 sales), followed by Let It Be (number 46, 5,801 sales), Twist And Shout (number 48, 5,633 sales, and Here Comes The Sun (number 64, 4,195 sales).

The least popular Beatles track? Surprisingly, not the extremely lengthy, avant garde Revolution Number 9, which sold 48 copies, but the Rubber Soul song What Goes On?. Written by Lennon, McCartney and Starr, it was one of drummer Ringo’s rare lead vocals, and attracted just 14 downloads last week.

Overall, some 132,649 Beatles tracks (singles) were sold. 12,268 Beatles albums were also downloaded, against 19,256 Beatles physical CDs and 97 LPs.