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List of best-selling Christmas singles in the United States
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This list of best-selling Christmas singles in the United States includes artists from around the world, but only reflects sales in the United States. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, "White Christmas" by Bing Crosby is not only the best-selling Christmas single in the United States, but also the best-selling single of all time since the advent of recorded music, with estimated sales in excess of 50 million copies worldwide.[1][2][3][4]
Prior to March 1, 1991, the only means of tracking sales figures for record albums and singles in the United States was via the certification system of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), based specifically on shipments (less potential returns) on a long-term basis. From March 1, 1991, through the present day, the Nielsen SoundScan tracking system has been more widely used to accurately track sales of record albums and singles at the point of sale (POS) based on inventory bar code scans, as well as digital music download sales starting in 2003. As of November 25, 2016, the holiday single with the most digital downloads is Mariah Carey's 1994 track "All I Want for Christmas Is You", which SoundScan estimates as having sold 3,200,000 copies.[5]
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Best-selling Christmas/holiday singles by Nielsen SoundScan data
This is a list of the top ten best-selling Christmas singles of the SoundScan era in the United States according to the Nielsen Company, as last updated on November 25, 2016.[5] Nielsen SoundScan began tracking digital download sales data at the end of June 2003.
Best-selling Christmas singles
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Best-selling Christmas/holiday singles by RIAA certification
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This is an incomplete list of the best-selling Christmas/holiday singles in the United States based on certification by the RIAA. This list provides a more complete representation of the best-selling Christmas/holiday albums in history, as it includes those released well before the Nielsen/SoundScan era of music sales.
Digital singles
Cellular ringtones
Physical singles
According to the most recent record certifications, the two holiday singles with the highest RIAA certification are Elvis Presley's 1964 single "Blue Christmas" and Bruce Springsteen's 1985 single "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town", which are certified Platinum by the RIAA (though their dates of certification occurred at least ten years after the RIAA reduced the threshold for Platinum level for singles from two million copies to one million copies).[9]
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