Number 1's (Mariah Carey Album) - Chart Performance

Chart Performance

As executives at Columbia had done during the album's development, Eric Boehlert of Rolling Stone noted the importance of the release date of #1s and other albums on sale during the same period: "Artists who make a habit of hitting it big during the holiday shopping season are wise indeed, as sales traditionally skyrocket. This year is no exception." Journalist and author Marc Shapiro, in his biography of Carey, attributed the album's high sales to the presence of new songs, writing:

"The consensus among the music press was that Mariah's insistence on including the new material made all the difference in increasing sales figures more than expected. Including some new with the old in a greatest-hits package had been tried from time to time by other artists with varying degrees of success, but with the triumph of #1s, it would become a regular element in nearly all future greatest-hits albums. As such packages go, #1s was a solid retrospective of Mariah's chart hits, but because these songs were oversaturating the radio, including a favorite nonhit album track or two might have made a nice change. The new songs were a definite bones even though none ever really rose to the spectacular level of her best ... they added up to a nice touch but little more."

#1s was released in the same week as several other albums by high-profile musicians such as Garth Brooks, Jewel, Method Man, Ice Cube and Whitney Houston. MTV News called November 17 "what is shaping up to be the music industry's Super Tuesday ... most onlookers know that first week sales aren't everything, but they will also tell you that they are pretty darn important." #1s entered the U.S. Billboard 200 at number four, with 221,000 copies sold in its first week. In its sixth week of release (ending January 2) the album's weekly sales peaked at 360,000 copies. It remained in the top twenty for thirteen weeks and on the chart for sixty-two weeks (making two re-entries). In Canada, #1s was certified triple-platinum by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), denoting shipments of over 300,000 copies.

In Europe, the album experienced success, peaking within the top-ten in almost every major music market. By 2003, the album received a double-platinum certification by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), denoting shipments of well over two million copies throughout Europe. In France, #1s was certified double-platinum, with estimated sales of 732,400 copies. The album received a platinum certification in Belgium, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, where it shipped over 300,000 copies. #1s received a gold certification in Germany, the Netherlands and Norway. Aside from its success in Europe, the album experienced its highest sales in Japan (after the US), where it sold 3,250,000 copies in the first three months after its release. In Japan, #1s remains the best-selling album in Japan by a non-Asian artist and is certified the triple-Million award. The album was certified five-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting shipments of over five million copies throughout the United States. According to Nielsen SoundScan, #1s has sold 3,703,000 copies in the US. To date, #1s has sold over 17 million copies worldwide.