An all-time High.

High School Musical 3 sales outstrip predecessors

By Ben Cardew

The success of Disney's High School Musical brand appears to be gathering momentum, with the latest album in the teen-pop series outstripping the sales of both its predecessors combined.

The sales of High School Musical 3 have been bolstered by the massive interest in its accompanying cinema release, which has been timed to coincide with the half-term school holidays. On its opening night in the UK last Wednesday, the movie raked in #1.6m across 485 cinema box offices.

By the end of last Thursday the album, which is released in the UK by EMI, had sold 62,797 copies, eclipsing High School Musical 2's first- week total of 41,529 and volume one's 18,531.

HSM2, the biggest-selling album in the world last year with 6m units sold, has gone on to sell 692,000 copies to date in the UK and HSM1, which topped the global sellers in 2006, has sold more than 1.1m units in the UK.

EMI suggests that the mid-week figures make HSM3 on track to become the fastest-selling soundtrack since the Official Charts Company chart began in 1994. And the major is obviously confident that the success will grow because shipments in the UK for HSM3 reached 341,000 last Thursday.