T3-24

The actual data hasn't been released yet, but an article from Oricon (Japan's premier chart provider) has stated that HEART STATION has sold more than 480000 copies in its first week, becoming this year's highest first week sales so far.

Well, that means that Utada Hikaru's 5 consecutive 500,000+ opening week sales record has been broken.

That doesn't mean much though, because very very few people are getting 500000+ first week sales nowadays, and nobody has done so this year, even though we've already had new releases from Ayumi Hamasaki and Kumi Koda.

Nevertheless, there are many more weeks to go before we get any idea of Heart Station's full sales numbers, though I don't hold out much hope for it being the best-selling album of the year. Utada Hikaru's albums tend to stay on the chart for quite a while, but to beat Kobukuro's 5296 would be quite a feat, even if you don't count their first week sales of 390884 (last week of 2007).

There are also other chart providers, such as SoundScan Japan, and Billboard Japan, but they do weekly charts only, and they haven't been released yet.