Michael Jackson's death surges music sales; "Number Ones" tops album charts

Following the death of the King of Pop, fans rushed to the music stores to buys Jackson's records. This has lead to an unparalleled rise in sales for his albums.

The music stores like HMV are reaping the benefits of this through a dramatic increase in sales and profit. The Chief executive of HMV group, Simon Fox said the store saw an 80-fold increase in the sales of Jackson's material on Friday (the day after Jackson's death) from the day before.

Moreover, the week-on-week increase had been larger than following the deaths of Elvis Presley in 1977 and John Lennon in 1980.

HMV Group reported a 12 percent increase in profit as a result of the surge.

Jackson's 2003 album "Number Ones" has reached the number one position in the British Musical Chart this week. Last week, the album was ranked at 121.

"There's been huge demand for Michael's recordings over the past few days, so it's really no surprise that 'Number Ones' has gone to the top of the official UK album charts, which pretty much has all his greatest hits on," said Gennaro Castaldo, spokesman for music retailer HMV.