Adam Lambert's sales in comparison

Now that final first week sales are in for Adam Lambert's debut album, let's take a look at how his numbers stack up against the sales and chart positions on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart of the seven previous runners-up.

First Week Sales - Runners-Up
1) Clay Aiken - Measure of a Man (612,859 - #1)
2) Bo Bice - The Real Thing (226,976 - #4)
3) Adam Lambert - For Your Entertainment (198,466 - #3)
4) David Archuleta - David Archuleta (182,927 - #2)
5) Katharine McPhee - Katharine McPhee (115,761 - #2)
6) Blake Lewis - Audio Day Dream (97,500 - #10)
7) Justin Guarini - Justin Guarini (57,000 - #20)
8) Diana DeGarmo - Blue Skies (46,795 - #52)

So when it comes to first week sales, Adam is far and away much better off than the majority of runners-up. When it comes to total sales, though, he has some large shoes to fill but he is also already ahead of where some debut albums from runners-up have placed to date, as evidenced below:

Total Sales - Runners-Up
1) Clay Aiken - Measure of a Man (2.8 million)
2) David Archuleta - David Archuleta (735k)
3) Bo Bice - The Real Thing (672k)
4) Katharine McPhee - Katharine McPhee (378k)
5) Blake Lewis - Audio Day Dream (309k)
6) Adam Lambert - For Your Entertainment (198,466 - #3)
7) Diana DeGarmo - Blue Skies (167k)
8) Justin Guarini - Justin Guarini (143k)

It is a good bet that For Your Entertainment will surpass the total sales of Katharine McPhee and Audio Day Dream by Christmas.