2006 in British Music Charts - Record Sales

Record Sales

Single sales bounced back in 2006 as legal downloads added nearly thirty million sales to the total for the year. Despite this, the 17,694 copies sold during its week at number one gave Orson's "No Tomorrow" the distinction of being the lowest sales ever of a chart topper. However 2006 also saw one song achieve sales of over half a million in its first week, Leona Lewis's song "A Moment Like This" sold 571,992 copies. Although not the biggest first week sales of any of the UK television talent show winners it was still a remarkable figure when total sales of individual records were generally in decline.

As of year end, Gnarls Barkley's single "Crazy", had sold over 800,000 (plus an additional 40,000+ before it became chart eligible) to become the best selling single of 2006, while Leona Lewis had the second biggest seller of the year and enjoyed a second week at number one as 2006 became 2007.The rest of the top five best sellers saw Shakira at three with over 500,000 copies sold in what was a very long chart run, Scissor Sisters were fourth and Sandi Thom was fifth in the overall sales list.