Taylor Swift '1989' Sales Figures 2014: Sells 1.287 Million Copies In A Week

Taylor Swift has done what no other artist has done this year -- sell over a million copies of an album, and she did it in just one week.

While the sales of her album 1989 didn't break the record of 1.319 million copies that Britney Spears' "Oops!... I Did It Again" sold in 2000, it became the highest selling album in the last 12 years.

The dismal sales figures posted by the other albums released this year hit an all-time low in August when sales for one week fell below four million units. Rolling Stone notes that sales of physical records have been falling since 2001, but this year also saw the sales of digital downloads fall by nearly 12 percent .

However, the sales figures generated by Swift have show that her albums still bring in a lot of money, and, as Bill Werde says, are "defying retail gravity at this point."

Although 1989's sales figures for its first week were high, the album shattered other records as well. Variety notes that the album has made Swift the only artist with three albums selling over one million copies in a week. Her previous album "Red" recorded sales of 1.208 million in 2012 while "Speak Now" sold1.047 million in 2010.

As for the secret to Swift's success, it could lie in the heavy promotion that she has undertaken for "1989." Her tour surrounding the album included a stint on "The Voice" as a guest coach. She followed that up with a performance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and an appearance on "Good Morning America."

Swift also has a big social media presence and has over 46 million followers on Twitter, with whom she interacts with regularly. On Twitter she uses the hashtag #taylurking and she is famous for retweeting tweets from fans even if they have sent her a photo of them buying her album. This encourages fans to go out and buy more physical albums from stores.