NEW YORK • 25, Adele's record- breaking album, has scored another feat - the highest United States sales during a single year in a decade.

The British singer's album unsurprisingly was the top-selling album of last year and spent its sixth week at No. 1 on the year's final chart released on Monday by Nielsen Music.

Adele's 25 sold 363,000 units in the final week of last year, taking her total US sales tally to 7.44 million copies by the end of Dec 31 - the most in a year since R&B star Usher's album Confessions sold 7.98 million copies in 2004.

However, Usher's album came out in March, while Adele managed the massive year-end tally despite releasing 25 on Nov 20.

The album, full of ballads that touch on heartache and childhood nostalgia, was Adele's first CD in four years and benefited from massive pent-up demand.

Her previous album, 21, was the top-selling album in the US in 2011 and 2012. However, 21 did not reach the sales of 25 in either year, showing the historic nature of Adele's latest work.

25, led by the single, Hello, enjoyed the biggest debut week sales on record in the US and Britain.

In a move that challenged the music industry's conventional wisdom about the need for instant online music, she did not make 25 available on streaming sites and still managed the huge sales through physical copies and digital downloads.

On the Digital Songs chart, which measures online song sales, Adele's ballad Hello held steady at No. 1 with 327,000 copies sold in the last week of the year.

No new releases cracked into the top 10 of the Billboard 200 list for the week. Justin Bieber's Purpose remained steady at No. 2, while alt-hip hop band Twenty One Pilots' Blurryface climbed to No. 3 from No. 11.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS