Taylor Swift's "Red," released last Monday, is on track to sell more than one million copies in its first week in U.S. stores—the first album to do so since Ms. Swift's "Speak Now" album came out in 2010.
Ms. Swift's fourth full-length release would be the 17th album to join a rarefied club that also includes the Beatles' hits collection "1," Whitney Houston's "The Bodyguard" soundtrack and Eminem's "Marshall Mathers LP."
Nielsen SoundScan doesn't release its weekly sales figures until Tuesday. Ms. Swift's album, however, appears likely to post one-week sales of about 1.1 million, making it about the 10th-best single week for an album since SoundScan began keeping tallies in 1991.
The album is expected to set new one-week sales records on Apple Inc.'s AAPL -0.91% iTunes Store, with world-wide sales of more than 565,000 copies and 464,000 copies in the U.S.
Target Corp. TGT +1.27% —one of Ms. Swift's corporate sponsors—sold more than 400,000 copies, also a one-week record for the chain.
Ms. Swift's manager, Robert Allen, was unavailable to comment, as was Scott Borchetta, chief executive of her record company, Big Machine Label Group.
Breaking the one-million-unit mark today takes more ingenuity than it did in 2000, the year the CD-sales boom peaked, and five albums accomplished the feat, including Limp Bizkit's "Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water."
The pace of million-sellers has slackened along with broader music sales, which have fallen by nearly 42% in the past 12 years. Sales have been hurt by Internet piracy and a variety of other factors.
As online access replaces ownership, million-selling debuts could become a thing of the past—and Ms. Swift's latest album could be one of the last.
Ms. Swift's latest ascent into the stratosphere has been aided by several corporate partners, including Papa John's International Inc., PZZA +0.97% which has been delivering to customers Ms. Swift's "Red" CD along with a single-topping large pizza for a total of $22. Her photo also appears on Papa John's pizza boxes.
Many of Walgreen Co.'s WAG -0.40% 8,000 locations have displayed the disc prominently, along with free-standing, life-size cardboard images of the 22-year-old pop star that fans have used for photo opportunities.
A Papa John's representative didn't respond to inquiries about how many CDs the chain sold; a Walgreen spokeswoman said she didn't know.
Such novel efforts aside, the album has been powered largely by more traditional means. Since announcing the album in August, Big Machine has released four singles. "Good Morning America," on Walt Disney Co.'s DIS -0.36% ABC television network, played 30-second previews of each song the day before the singles went on sale on iTunes.
Potentially boosting Ms. Swift's sales, Big Machine isn't making her album available through online streaming services such as Spotify for at least several months. Many artists and labels, including Big Machine, have complained that they make little from such services, which let users listen to unlimited amounts of music for a flat monthly price, or even free. Acts ranging from the Black Keys and the White Stripes to Led Zeppelin and the Beatles have withheld music from the services.
Though Ms. Swift is nominally a country artist, her music has taken on an increasingly pop sound, a key to attracting more buyers.
"It's not just the country fan, it's not just the pop fan." says Rich Bengloff, president of the American Association of Independent Music, a trade group that includes Big Machine. "You don't get a number like she did without attracting a number of tribes. It's the niche-ing of America."
Assuming Ms. Swift bows at the top of the chart as expected, it will be the fifth week in a row the U.S. album-sales chart is topped by an independent-label release.
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