Katy Perry Lands Her Third No. 1 Album on the Billboard 200 With ‘Witness’

Katy Perry has earned her third No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart with ‘Witness.’

The project earned 180,000 equivalent album units sold in its first week. Of that sum, 162,000 are traditional album sales (not streaming).

via Billboard:

Witness follows Perry’s two earlier No. 1s: Prism (in 2013) and Teenage Dream (2010). All three albums debuted atop the list. Prism, her previous studio set, launched with 286,000 in sales (before the chart transitioned to a units-based ranking in December of 2014).

Perry’s bow of 180,000 units is the biggest week for an album by a woman in 2017, and the largest since Lady Gaga’s Joanne started at No. 1 with 201,000 units on the chart dated Nov. 12, 2016. Witness also logs the largest sales week for an album by a woman since Joanne (170,000).

As Perry’s Witness follows Halsey’s Hopeless Fountain Kingdom at No. 1, the Billboard 200 has back-to-back No. 1s by women for the first time in more than a year. It last happened on the April 2 and April 9, 2016-dated lists, when Rihanna’s Anti and Gwen Stefani’s This Is What the Truth Feels Like held court, respectively. Further, Perry is just the second woman to lead the Billboard 200 in 2017 (after Halsey), and the fifth woman to be No. 1 in the past 12 months. (In that same span of time, 16 men and 10 male-dominated groups have topped the chart.)

Congrats to Katy!