Drake's First-Week 'Views' U.S. Sales Forecast Grows to 850,000-Plus

Drake's First-Week 'Views' U.S. Sales Forecast Grows to 850,000-Plus

  

Drake at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto on Nov. 25, 2015.

 

Drake’s Views album was already off to a fast start, and it’s getting even bigger. Industry forecasters now say the album could sell over 850,000 copies in the U.S. in the week ending May 5, while its total equivalent album unit sum may surpass 1 million. On April 30, industry sources suggested Views was on its way to over an 800,000 sales start, and perhaps over 900,000 in total units.

Further, Nielsen Music reports that Views has already sold over 770,000 copies in its first four days on sale (April 29-May 2).

The album is on track to debut at No. 1 on the May 21-dated Billboard 200 chart, giving Drake his sixth chart-topper. The set was released exclusively for sale through the iTunes Store and to stream via Apple Music on April 29 by Young Money/Cash Money/Republic Records.
 
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The top 10 of the new May 21-dated Billboard 200 chart is scheduled to be revealed on Billboard’s websites on Sunday, May 8.

As Views has already sold more than 770,000 copies, it has earned Drake his largest sales week ever (and the week isn’t even over yet). It beats his previous high, logged when Nothing Was the Same debuted at No. 1 in 2013 with 658,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen Music.

Views follows Drake’s five consecutive No. 1-debuting full-length albums on the Billboard 200: What a Time to Be Alive (with Future, in 2015), If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late (2015), Nothing Was the Same, Take Care (2012) and Thank Me Later (2010). His only charting album to miss the top was his debut EP, So Far Gone, which peaked at No. 6 in 2009.

If Views starts with over 850,000 copies sold, it will be just the 10th album to sell more than 850,000 copies in a single week in the past 10 years -- and the first by a male artist to do so since Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience launched with 968,000 in the week ending March 24, 2013. (The last album to sell more than 850,000 in a week was Adele’s 25, which managed the feat in three separate weeks at the end of 2015.)