The UK Album Downloads Chart is compiled by the Official Charts on behalf of the British music industry. Since July 2015, the chart week runs from Friday to Thursday, with the chart date given as the following Thursday.[1] The chart was introduced in April 2006 to coincide with the OCC's decision to include sales of album downloads in the UK Albums Chart.[2] The first album to top the download chart was This New Day by Embrace.[3]
The chart is published in Music Week, UKChartsPlus and on the OC's official website, with the former featuring the Top 75 downloads and the top 100 in the latter two. The chart only uses sales of permanent digital downloads, that is album-downloads on non-subscription online music stores.
Before the inauguration of the download chart, only sales of physical formats—such as CD, vinyl and cassette tape—contributed towards an album's position on the UK Albums Chart. In 2004, in response to falling physical sales of singles, a downloads-only singles chart was introduced by the Official Charts Company (OCC); the following year, downloads were implemented into the UK Singles Chart.
In the first three months of 2006, more than 825,000 albums were legally downloaded, almost half of the entire total downloaded in 2005.[2] In response, a digital albums chart was launched in April 2006, alongside the OCC's decision to include downloads in the regular chart.[2] On 9 April 2006, English alternative rock band Embrace topped the first ever UK Album Downloads Chart with their fifth studio album This New Day, which sold around 1,200 digital copies.[3]
| scope=col | Year | scope=col | Album | scope=col | Artist | scope=col | Record label | scope=col class=unsortable | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2006 | Eyes Open | Snow Patrol | Universal | [5] | ||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2007 | Back to Black | Universal | [6] | |||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2008 | Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends | Coldplay | EMI | |||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2009 | Lady Gaga | Universal | ||||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2010 | Sigh No More | Mumford & Sons | Universal | |||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2011 | 21 | Adele | Beggars | |||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2012 | ||||||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2013 | Bad Blood | Bastille | Universal | [7] | ||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2014 | x | Warner | [8] | |||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2015 | 25 | Adele | Beggars | [9] | ||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2016 | 25 | Adele | Beggars | [10] | ||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2017 | ||||||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2018 | The Greatest Showman | Motion Picture Cast Recording | Warner | [11] | ||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2019 | ||||||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2020 | ||||||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2021 | ||||||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2022 |