Whitney Houston's Posthumous Sales Surge: By the Numbers

In the days immediately following her sudden death, the iconic singer returns to the charts, eclipsing her sales from the last 13 months combined.

4:52 PM PST 2/15/2012 by Michael O'Connell

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As has been the trend with so many artists -- Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Johnny Cash, among them -- sales of Whitney Houston's music received a huge boost in the aftermath of her sudden death on Feb. 11.

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But you might be surprised by just how much music the late singer has managed to move since in just a few days.

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With just 24 hours passing between news of Houston's death and Nielsen SoundScan tabulating the weekly album charts, Whitney: The Greatest Hits still managed to surge into the Top 10 with 64,000 copies sold. That's a 10,419 percent gain from the previous week, which saw it move fewer than 1,000 copies.

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The Bodyguard soundtrack and her self-titled debut also entered Billboard's top 100, contributing to a figure that actually eclipses the number of albums Houston sold in the last 14 months combined.

So how well is Whitney Houston's music doing now that she's gone? Here's a rundown of some of the most notable Whitney-related figures to pop up in four days since she died:

3: Hours it took following Houston's death for Greatest Hits to top iTunes albums chart

6: Position for Greatest Hits on this week's Billboard chart

12: Songs currently in the iTunes Top 100

26: Songs currently in the iTunes Top 200

1,700: Albums sold in the U.S. in the week ending on Sunday, Feb. 5

101,000: Albums in the U.S. in the week ending on Sunday, Feb. 12

97,000: Albums sold in the U.S. in 2011 and the first 6 weeks of 2012 combined

15,000: Downloads for Houston tracks in the week ending on Sunday, Feb. 5

887,000: Downloads for Houston tracks in the week ending on Sunday, Feb. 12

195,000: Downloads for Houston's "I Will Always Love You" the week of her death

2,137: Number of times Houston's "I Will Always Love You" played on U.S. radio the weekend of her death