Fans of British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran had been waiting almost three years for the release of his third studio album. The music world was expecting big things from the artist's come-back, but ÷ ("Divide") has enjoyed unprecedented success, notching up a string of impressive world records since the first tracks from the album were released on 6 January.

The long-player debuted at No.1 on this week's UK Official Albums Chart and has become the Fastest-selling pop album in the UK by a male artist of all time.

With a staggering 672,000 first-week sales and downloads, it has sold more copies in its first week than the rest of the UK's Top 500 albums combined.

The hugely-popular musician currently has a grand total of 16 tracks in the UK Top 20 – a feat which has also earned Ed the record for Most simultaneous UK Top 20 singles.

The previous UK record was five simultaneous Top 20 songs, shared by Ruby Murray (1955), Bill Haley and his Comets (1956), Elvis Presley (1957) and Michael Jackson (2009).

All 16 tracks from the deluxe edition of ÷ crashed into Spotify's Global Top 50 streaming chart on 3 March, as well as the Top 50 in 12 international markets (Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland and the UK). In the UK and Ireland, the 16 tracks claimed the entire Top 16 spaces.

On 9 January, "Shape of You" became the Most streamed track on Spotify in 24 hours. The song was premiered on BBC Radio 1 (UK) the day before and racked up 6.13 million streams in the first 24 hours before jumping to 6.58 million on 7 January and then 7.24 million times on 9 January 2017.

All three totals smashed Spotify's previous 24-hour streaming record, set on 31 July 2015 by One Direction's "Drag Me Down", with 4.75 million streams.

With the initial release of "Shape of You" and "Castle on the Hill", Sheeran also became both the First act to debut in UK Top 10 with two singles simultaneously and First act to debut in US Top 10 with two singles simultaneously.