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The record, “Beyoncé” (Columbia), appeared on Apple’s iTunes store at midnight on Thursday with no warning. Yet Apple reported on Monday that it became the fastest-selling album in its history, with 828,773 around the world in its first three days, including 617,213 in the United States. It reached No. 1 on iTunes’s sales rankings in 104 countries.

In the United States, where albums are typically released on Tuesdays, “Beyoncé” had the fourth-biggest opening-week sales of any album this year, after Justin Timberlake’s “The 20/20 Experience” (with 968,000 sales), Eminem’s “The Marshall Mathers LP 2” (792,000) and Drake’s “Nothing Was the Same” (658,000). It also performed far better than Beyoncé’s last album, “4,” which sold 310,000 copies in its first week two years ago.

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– http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/business/media/apple-says-beyonce-set-a-record-on-itunes.html?ref=todayspaper