One Direction’s Midnight Memories becomes 2013's biggest selling album

One Direction’s Midnight Memories surges ahead of Emeli Sande’s Our Version Of Events at the last minute to become the biggest selling artist album of 2013.

Congratulations to One Direction, whose latest album Midnight Memories has mounted a late surge to overcome all challengers and become the UK's biggest selling artist album of 2013.

Midnight Memories achieved the honour in super-fast time, racking up almost 700,000 sales in just five weeks since it's release last month - according to the UK music industry-recognised market data, which is compiled by the Official Charts Company.

According to the Official Charts Company’s final sales data of 2013, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik’s third full-length album shot ahead of Emeli Sande’s record-breaking debut album, Our Version Of Events, in the last week of the year claiming the top spot on the annual best sellers chart with 685,000 sales.

After leading the chart for nearly the whole year, Emeli’s album drops to second place with sales of 683,000 copies. Our Version Of Events was the biggest selling artist album of 2012, and has sold more than 2.07 million copies to date.

“This tops an amazing year for us!” Liam told OfficialCharts.com when he heard the news. “We're so excited to have the biggest selling album in the UK this year, especially with a record we are all so proud of. We'd like to thank everyone who has bought the album, it really means a lot to us.”

Official Charts Company chief executive Martin Talbot adds, "Hearty congratulations should go to One Direction. It is a huge honour to become the biggest seller of any year. To do so in such a short amount of time is a very impressive achievement."

Released on Monday, November 25, Midnight Memories debuted at Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart. It sold more than 237,000 copies during its first week on sale, becoming the fastest selling album of 2013. It also became the fastest selling album of 1D’s career, beating the first week tallies of 2011’s Up All Night (139,000 copies week one) and 2012’s Take Me Home (155,000 copies).

The success also comes a week after the band's video release of the movie This Is Us also became the fastest selling music DVD/Blu-ray in UK history, selling 270,000 copies in its first three days on release.

The Official Top 40 Biggest Selling Albums and Singles of 2013 will be published, in full, on www.officialcharts.com on New Year's Day.