Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has broken the record for most books sold on the first day of release, selling 8.3 million copies in the first 24 hours. The record was previously held by
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince which sold nearly 7 million.
Of the 12 million copies printed by Scholastic, 1.2 million were sold by Borders and 2.2 million at Amazon.com, with numbers from Barnes & Noble expected to be somewhere in between the two. As many as 6 million were purchased at “non-traditional retailers” such as Wal-Mart and Costco.
According to Scholastic:
Quote:
The excitement, anticipation, and just plain hysteria that came over the entire country this weekend was a bit like the Beatles' first visit to the U.S.
Interestingly, box office attendance for
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix went down by 58 percent the weekend
Deathly Hallows was released.
Source:
Variety UPDATE: Meanwhile, in the U.K. Bloomsbury have
announced that 2.7 million copies of
Deathly Hallows were released in the first 24 hours of it going on sale - making it the fastest selling book ever. The previous record at 2 million was held by
Half-Blood Prince.
UPDATE #2: Further to the U.S. news, Barnes & Noble have
announced that they sold 1.8 million copies of
Deathly Hallows in the first 48 hours of release.
UPDATE #3:
The Guardian has a breakdown of the sales of the book within the U.K.
Quote:
Supermarket sales appear to account for around half of the 2.7m copies, with Asda's quick apology to Bloomsbury and aggressive price-cutting producing sales of 126,000 copies priced £5 in the first hour, and 485,000 copies in the first 24 hours - a rise of 128% on figures for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
According to a Tesco spokesman, the chain sold "more than 500,000 copies over the weekend" at an in-store price of £10 - a price which reduces to £5 as part of a supermarket spend of £50 or more - and are continuing strongly. "We're expecting that people will put it in the trolley along with their weekly shopping," he said.
Sainsbury's refused to give precise figures, claiming that sales were commercially sensitive information, but suggested that sales at £8.87 have "gone very well".
Of the major booksellers, Borders and WHSmith are both "very pleased" with sales over the weekend. Both refuse to give figures for sales in the UK, though Borders reports 1.2m copies sold worldwide - "considerably up" on last time - and WHSmith claims sales at a rate of 15 copies a second.
Waterstone's are less tight-lipped, quoting 350,000 copies sold in the first 24 hours. The high-street chain is celebrating the success of Potter-night parties in 279 branches, with 100,000 books sold at £8.99 each in the first two hours after the book's release at midnight last Friday.
UPDATE #4:
The Scotsman has the exact figure of copies of
Deathly Hallows sold in the first 24 hours of release in the U.K.; 2,652,656 - a significant increase from the first day sales of
Half-Blood Prince which amounted to 2,009,574.
Quote:
Publisher Bloomsbury described it as "the most astoundingly successful book launch ever".
Deathly Hallows breaks sales record (UPDATED) 
It ought to make us feel happy to have been able to be a part of it, you know?
I love that. I'm not surprised! 
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A true friend | You're here 'til the end 
