Take That record huge opening day

The Circus is set to be number one in the album chart

Take That have scored the biggest first day sale of the year with their new album, The Circus.

The album sold 133,000 copies on its launch day on Monday, according to Official Charts Company sales data.

The figure puts the album easily on course to be number one in Sunday's album chart.

The year's previous fastest-selling album was Coldplay's Viva La Vida Or death And All His Friends, which sold 125,000 copies on its first day.

Despite netting the biggest first day sale title, sales of the album had actually been hit due to the collapse of major CD distributor Entertainment UK (EUK) last week.

Several key retailers including Woolworths, Zavvi and WH Smith were left without the album on shelves and online on Monday.

'Extra exciting'

Stocks of all albums are expected to be in all key stores by the end of this week, however.

"Today's sales figures are even more exciting considering the album wasn't available in all stores yesterday," said Universal Music UK chairman, David Joseph.

The Circus has comfortably beaten the first day sales of Take That's last album, Beautiful World, which went on to be the second biggest-selling record of 2006 after just four weeks on sale.

The group launched their latest album at London's St Pancras station and continued on the Eurostar to Paris.