Billboard: Taylor Swift’s first-week sales for ‘1989’ could hit 1.2 million

The latest sales projections have Taylor Swift in hot pursuit of ... herself.

Her “1989” album is now tracking toward a first-week sales total of 1.2 million copies, according to Billboard. Her previous album, “Red,” sold 1.21 million units in its first week of release two years ago.

Billboard, describing the album’s sales as “surging,” has been adjusting projections steadily upward, since initial reports back from retailers estimated a first-week figure of 750,000 copies, then 800,000, then 900,000, 1 million, and now 1.2 million.

And we’re still days away from the end of the reporting period for “1989’s” release week, which closes at midnight Sunday.

Nielsen SoundScan typically releases sales figures for the previous reporting period on the following Wednesday morning, although sometimes in high-profile cases such as this, the retails sales reports are culled early and surface Tuesday evening.

Swift’s official sales count would not include any copies of “1989” that are being sold for 99 cents through Microsoft as part of an enticement for consumers to try out its new Music Deals app, a service that will take the place of Microsoft’s Xbox Music free streaming service, which is going away in December, Billboard notes.

Billboard changed its chart methodology to require an album be priced at no less than $3.99 to count toward its official chart total after Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” album in 2011 moved hundreds of thousands of copies at just 99 cents as part of a promotion for Amazon’s MP3 store.

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