Nielsen Soundscan figures indicate that The Carter IV moved a total of 964,000 records in its first week of release. It's telling that more than a third of those purchases were digital, and came in the first four days.
iTunes has been the number one music retailer since 2008, when Apple announced it had eclipsed brick-and-mortar stores. But The Carter IV's success just reaffirms the strength of this model.
Weezy's latest jam became available on iTunes immediately after his performance at the 2011 VMAs; it hit the top spot immediately. The Deluxe Edition, which contains more tracks and retails for $14.99 on iTunes, $3.99 more than the standard edition, accounted for 95% of digital sales and 70% of physical sales. In the age of Spotify and $0.99 album release sales, it's rare that a $15 special edition can move so many copies.
In 2011, moving nearly a million copies of an album in the first week of release is an achievement in itself. A decade ago, it was common for anticipated releases from major artists to move that many units -- but as the industry has contracted, such impressive first-week figures are no longer commonplace. Lady Gaga moved more than 1.15 million copies of Born this Way in its first week of release, but even that figure -- the biggest debut since 'NSYNC's Celebrity in 2001 -- was aided by a one-day sale on Amazon. The online retailer offered Born This Way for 99 cents as part of a bid to promote its cloud storage service.
Like Gaga, Lil Wayne has an extensive following on social media. In February, the rapper famously took down Oreo's record for most Facebook Likes in 24 hours.