Plus: Megan Thee Stallion debuts in top five.
Ed Sheeran scores his fourth No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart as his latest studio album, =, bows atop the list (dated Nov. 13). The set, which was released on Oct. 29, earned 118,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Nov. 4, according to MRC Data. Over half of that sum was driven by album sales.
Sheeran previously led the list with No. 6 Collaborations Project (in 2019), ÷ (in 2017) and x (in 2014). Each of his previous chart-topping albums also debuted at No. 1.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Nov. 13, 2021-dated chart (where = debuts at No. 1) will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Nov. 9. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.