From Forbes magazine, December 26, 2018:
The Greatest Showman (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) album has sold 5.3 million copies worldwide since its release on December 8 last year, with unprecedented runs in the U.S. and U.K. especially. On the Billboard 200, it is currently at No. 10 and has been the chart for 54 weeks, virtually its entire release life, peaking in the top slot.
The Greatest Showman album returned to the No. 1 slot in Britain for Christmas week with its biggest-ever weekly sale of 69,000 units – 85% from sales and the rest from unit-equivalent streams. The British sales figures are typical of those in other countries, with more than half of sales from CDs and vinyl. This suggests that the album is being bought by older consumers less familiar with digital media. Still, the movie also appeals to a younger audience. The Atlantic album has also just gone Platinum for a fifth time, according to the BPI industry group, with nearly 1.5 million units sold in a year, the biggest-seller of 2018.
In Britain, the album has been in the Top 5 for every week of the Official Album Chart of 2018. It has been at No. 1 for a non-consecutive 23 of those weeks. This matches the 21-century record set by Adele’s second album 21, also at the top for 23 weeks. However chart analysts point out that Adele’s record was set over the course of two years in 2011 and 2012, whereas The Greatest Showman was released just over a year ago. Its No. 1 chart run also matches Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles, which racked up 23 straight weeks at the top from debut in June 1967. The Greatest Showman therefore has the best performance in some 50 years and may well better it if sale trends continue.
The 20th-Century Fox film’s success confounded many critics, some of whom were lukewarm about the story of circus entrepreneur P.T. Barnum, played by Hugh Jackman.
Updated, December 28, 2018:
“The Greatest Showman soundtrack has now spent more weeks at number one in the UK than any other album this century - beating a record set by Adele.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-46704440
Alex Lacamoire 
