Ed Sheeran album '÷' is fastest selling by a male artist in history

Singer-songwriter achieves No 1 album and obliterates several records for the global music industry

Sheeran had four out of 10 of 2017’s top singles, and two of the top 10 albums

Ed Sheeran has made history with the fastest-selling album by a male artist ever.

The British singer-songwriter's third album ÷ (Divide) debuted at No 1 on the Official UK Album Charts with an astonishing 672,000 sales in its opening week.

It is the third fastest-selling album of all time – after Adele's 25 and Oasis's Be Here Now – and has already gone double platinum.

Sheeran has also achieved the feat of having nine songs in the Official Singles Chart. While Divide sits at No 1 in the UK Albums Chart, his previous two records x (Multiply) and + (Plus) are also at No 4 and No 5 respectively.

Sheeran commented: "Wow! What a phenomenal week. To every person who's bought the album - thank you. I'm buzzing!"

Since its release, ÷ has obliterated several global records in streaming and unit sales.

He became the first artist to have every song off their album enter the top 20, holds the highest one-week vinyl sales for more than 20 years, and can claim to have sold more than the rest of the Official Album Charts' Top 500 combined in the space of seven days.

One of his first two singles off the album, 'Shape Of You', just became the most-played track in the history of the US Top 40, and he has overtaken records by The Weeknd and Stormzy on streaming platforms.