According to Nielson Music, Prince’s albums and songs have sold 7.7 million copies since his death in April of 2016, and during that same year, he sold more albums than any other artist.
Of the 7.7 million copies that were sold since Prince’s death until the week ending April 13, 2.3 million were traditional album and song sales, while 5.4 million were from digital song downloads. For comparison, the 5.4 million digital downloads made up around a third of his total digital downloads, totaling 18.64 million, since Nielson started tracking them in 2003.
Additionally, the 2.3 million traditional album and song sales far outstripped those for 2015, where he sold 280,000 albums.
With a total of 2.23 album copies sold, Prince outstripped any other artist for album sales in 2016, even surpassing Adele, who sold 2.21 million albums.
Most of those sales were made during the month following Prince’s death, with 5.65 million sales registered between April 21 and May 19, 2016. This year, the sales are back down to nearly the same level as they were prior to Prince’s passing, with track sales at 286,000, while last year they were at almost 270,000.
Album sales remain high, though, at around twice what they were last year prior to his death, though this could be because of the release of 4Ever, since new albums generate higher sales.