NEW YORK • It has become a tradition: As Christmas approached, people bought an Adele album.

In its fifth week out - a period ending last Thursday - the English singer's latest LP, 30, saw its sales activity jump 16 per cent from the week prior, a boost driven by traditional sales, not streams.

30, which held at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, moved 180,500 copies as a full album for a total of 212,000 equivalent album units, including streams (41 million, down 14 per cent) and individual song downloads, according to MRC Data, Billboard's tracking arm.

An album has not had total sales this large in its fifth week since Adele's previous LP, 25, which was also released in the lead-up to the holiday season in 2015.

Some things, however, have changed: The singer's fifth-week sales for 25 were still more than one million last time around.

30 also became the fourth album released this year to spend at least five weeks at No. 1, following releases by country singer Morgan Wallen (10 weeks on top), teenage singer Olivia Rodrigo (five) and rapper Drake (five), according to Billboard.

Also benefiting from the holiday season: Canadian singer Michael Buble's Christmas, which came out a decade ago, jumped to No. 2 on the album chart this week with 77,000 units.

On the Hot 100, American singer Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You, originally released in 1994, held at No. 1 for a second straight week and its seventh total since finally hitting the top spot in 2019.

Pop superstar Taylor Swift's Red (Taylor's Version) was steady at No. 3, totalling 76,000 units, while Live Life Fast, the new album from American rapper Roddy Ricch, debuted at No. 4 with 62,000, including 77 million streams.

Ricch's previous album, Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial, opened at No. 1 in 2019 and spent four total weeks on top. Rodrigo's Sour rounded out the top 5.

NYTIMES