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Download single sales pass one billion in the UK

By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 10 April 2013

Over a billion download singles have now been sold in the UK, since the Official Charts Company started counting in 2004. The milestone was passed on Monday evening, the company announced yesterday.

According to the OCC, over three million single track downloads are now routinely being sold each week in the UK, with the most successful releases overall to date all released in the last few years. At number one is Adele with ‘Someone Like You’, followed by Maroon 5’s ‘Moves Like Jagger’, ‘Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye, ‘I Gotta Feeling’ by the Black Eyed Peas and Rihanna’s Calvin Harris collaboration, ‘We Found Love’.

Announcing the news, OCC boss Martin Talbot said: “The explosion in download sales over the past nine years means we are genuinely now living in the digital music age – with Adele as our queen! Over the nine years of legitimate digital music, more than sixteen new tracks have sold one million copies, which emphasises just how popular digital music is in the modern age”.

For all the key facts about digital single sales in the UK to date, check out this OCC infographic.

Meanwhile the top ten biggest selling downloads are:

1 Adele – Someone Like You
2 Maroon 5 feat Christina Aguilera – Moves Like Jagger
3 Gotye feat Kimbra – Somebody That I Used To Know
4 Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feeling
5 Rihanna feat Calvin Harris – We Found Love
6 Kings Of Leon – Sex On Fire
7 Carly Rae Jepsen – Call Me Maybe
8 LMFAO – Party Rock Anthem
9 Bruno Mars – Just The Way You Are (Amazing)
10 Jessie J – Price Tag