The Fifth Harry Potter Book Breaks Sale Record

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, June 24, 2003

The Fifth Harry Potter Book Breaks Sale Record

The fifth book about the wizard boy Harry Potter, which went on sale Saturday midnight, flew off the shelves at a record rate.

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The fifth book about the wizard boy Harry Potter, which went on sale Saturday midnight, flew off the shelves at a record rate.

More than 1 million copies of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" are estimated to have been sold in Britain over the weekend, the Guardian newspaper reported on Monday.

An average of 220 copies were bought every minute at Tesco supermarkets with 317,400 copies sold by the chain in the first 24 hours after the book went on sale.

WH Smith, Britain's largest bookseller, said the book was the fastest selling book ever. The novel is expected to be 10 times more popular than its predecessor, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," which was the previous fastest seller.

Amazon, the on-line retailer, said the novel had broken Internet sales records with more than 1.3 million advance orders worldwide, including more than 420,000 in Britain.

The delivery of the book is the largest distribution of any single item in e-commerce history.

Scenes of Potter fever swept across the world. The book also went on sale at the Xinhua book store in Beijing, in which shop officials said was China's first participation in a global book launch.

Among the various Asian language editions that will be published, the Thai and Chinese versions are due by December.

The latest book came nearly three years after "Harry Potter andthe Goblet of Fire." Publisher Bloomsbury has said that the unprecedented demand would drive profits to a new high.

The first four Harry Potter books have sold 195 million copies in almost 200 countries.

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