X Factor winner Ben Haenow has taken an early lead in the race for Christmas number one, the Official Chart Company has revealed.
The former van driver sold 75,000 copies of his winner’s single, Something I Need, on Sunday and Monday.
He is 23,000 sales ahead of the current number one, Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’s Uptown Funk.
The balance could be tipped when physical sales and streaming data are counted in Sunday’s Christmas chart.
Haenow, 29, from Croydon, was considered a surprise winner of X Factor on Sunday night.
But voting patterns released by ITV showed that he had topped the public vote from the fourth week onwards.
He claimed 57.2% of the votes cast in the final, easily beating bookmakers’ favourite Fleur East, who had 34.3% of the vote, and third place contestant Andrea Faustini, on 8.5%.
‘Genuine battle’
His single, a cover of a One Republic song, was available for download immediately after the X Factor Final on Sunday.
However, it will not be available in shops until Wednesday, with proceeds going towards children’s charity Together For Short Lives.
The CD sales could boost its chances of claiming the Christmas number one slot – but the inclusion of streaming data in the official chart countdown, which began in July, could upset that.
“Uptown Funk has a strong head start on the streaming front and is already the second most streamed track of the week,” said the Official Charts Company.
“The current streaming trend tends to favour songs that have been available for several weeks as awareness for songs grows and they are added to playlists, meaning the addition of streaming data could favour Mark Ronson considerably.
“Uptown …read more
Source:: BBC Entertainment
