Adele’s ‘30’ has been named the biggest selling album of 2021 in the UK, despite the fact it wasn’t released until midway through November.

According to the Official Charts Company, Adele’s fourth record had over 600,000 combined chart sales, making it the biggest album of 2021. Nearly 450,000 of those units were physical sales, while 53,000 of them were counted as downloads.

Ed Sheeran‘s ‘=‘ was named as the second biggest album of 2021, followed by ABBA‘s comeback album ‘Voyage‘ and Olivia Rodrigo‘s debut ‘Sour‘.

The UK’s Top Ten Biggest Selling Albums of 2021 is as follows:

01. Adele – ’30’
02. Ed Sheeran – ‘=’
03. ABBA – ‘Voyage’
04. Olivia Rodrigo – ‘Sour’
05. Queen – ‘Greatest Hits’
06. Dua Lipa – ‘Future Nostalgia’
07. Ed Sheeran – ‘÷’
08. Elton John – ‘Diamonds’
09. Fleetwood Mac – ’50 Years: Don’t Stop’
10. Dave – ‘We’re All Alone In This Together’

Rodrigo’s ‘Sour’ also tied with Adele’s ‘30’ as the longest-running Number One album of 2021, with both records spending five consecutive weeks on the top spot.

‘30’ became the fastest-selling album of the year in the UK upon its release, racking up 261,000 chart equivalent sales – breaking the 2021 record previously set by ABBA’s ‘Voyage’. It also scored the biggest opening sales of 2021 in the US, where it moved 839,000 equivalent album units in its first week. It went on to become the first album to surpass a million sales in the US in 2021.

It comes as reports found that 2021 saw a 2.5 per cent rise in music consumption in the UK, with the BPI reporting that 159 million albums or their equivalent were either streamed or purchased across all formats by music fans in the UK last year.

Meanwhile, Adele is set to kick off her Las Vegas residency later this month.

The singer-songwriter will be performing two shows every weekend at the Colosseum in the Caesars Palace hotel from January 21 through to April 16, 2022.

The residency, entitled ‘Weekends With Adele’, comes ahead of her two sold-out dates at BST Hyde Park in the UK next summer.