Timberlake’s Album, Aided by Extensive Campaign, Has Blockbuster Start

Josh Haner/The New York Times Justin Timberlake performing at South by Southwest in Austin, Tex.

Never underestimate Justin Timberlake.

When “The 20/20 Experience” (RCA), his first new album in almost seven years, was released last week, music industry experts predicted that it might sell half a million copies. With album sales diminished over all, that would be perfectly respectable for a hit. But as the week went on, the sales projections kept climbing: past 700,000, past 800,000, past 900,000 and ever closer to one million.

The final number, reported by Billboard late Tuesday with data from Nielsen SoundScan, was 968,000 copies. That is slightly shy of the highest projections for the album, but still extraordinary for an album in 2013. Since SoundScan began tracking sales data in 1991, only 19 albums have sold more than 900,000 copies in their first week, including two albums by Mr. Timberlake’s band N’ Sync (but not his previous two solo records).

“The 20/20 Experience” also had the second-biggest opening week for an album on Spotify, with 7.7 million streams in the United States. (Mumford & Sons’ “Babel” last year had eight million.)

While music sales have been sliding since 2000, blockbusters still come with regularity. Last year Taylor Swift’s “Red” sold 1.2 million copies; in 2011, Lady Gaga had sales of 1.1 million with “Born This Way” and Lil’ Wayne’s “Tha Carter IV” sold 964,000; and in 2010, Ms. Swift sold just over one million with her album “Speak Now.”

The success of those albums argues for the continuing strength of pop stardom even in a declining music industry. In most cases they also point to the necessity of overwhelming promotion to secure a genuine blockbuster, and perhaps no album campaign in history has been as extensive as the one for “The 20/20 Experience.”

It included television commercials by Target and Bud Light Premium (for which Mr. Timberlake is “creative director”); a heavy push on radio by Clear Channel and CBS Radio; a string of concert performances, including ones around the Super Bowl and the South by Southwest music festival; and high-profile television appearances by Mr. Timberlake, like hosting “Saturday Night Live” for the fifth time and spending an entire week as a guest on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.”

SoundScan will report the rest of this week’s music sales on Wednesday.