The actual sales figures seem difficult to track down, but the initial news stories told of them selling very well indeed: the stereo versions will now remain on catalogue so perhaps that's why the piles in HMV didn't seem to change ;-)

The mono box will eventually be deleted, I understand, but extra copies were produced to meet the greater-than-anticipated demand.

The Beatles are always profitable, but they would have made more if they'd been released as originally planned in 2004 when the market for CDs was about 20% stronger. The mono box was originally limited to 10,000 ( at £200 a pop= £2,000,000 gross) and as Paolo has pointed out has been so successful that the limited edition bit has been quietly forgotten.

Here's a post I put up not long after the reissues came out...

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/beatles-stats-beatlestats

Hi chart fans! Billboord reports on the sales of the Beatles reissues in the link below. But the bit I found amazing was this:

"Since SoundScan began tracking music sales in 1991, the Beatles have never sold less than 1 million albums in a year. The group's best year came in 2000, when the release of its hits package "1" helped the band sell a total of 7,289,000 in the U.S."

One million a year. If you look at the data properly, in this lovely graph they supply, there are only 3 years out of the last 18 where they dip below 2 million:

http://www.billboard.com/photos/stylus/101833-2-beatles_albums_by_year.j...

55 million sales in 1992-2008, 3.2 million sales average/year, a record sold every 10 seconds. Just in the USA. Not too shabby.

I know some people wondered if these remasters would be profitable. I'm sure Apple & co are very happy

Ver link:
http://www.billboard.com/news#/news/beatles-jay-z-dominate-billboard-cha...

Bonus link:
http://www.billboard.com/news/beatles-reissues-dominate-global-sales-100...

As of this morning:

Mono Box
Week one...........3,305
Weeks one - four...4,896
Total for 09.......7,534
Total to date......7,781

Stereo Box
Week one...........7,671
Weeks one - four...11,804
Total for 09.......27,524
Total to date......28,611

They massively over exceeded expectations at the label - fact

Please Please Me
Week one...........5,107
Weeks one - four...11,989
Total for 09.......27,395
Total to date......29,922

With the Beatles
Week one...........3,909
Weeks one - four...8,863
Total for 09.......22,360
Total to date......24,329

A Hard Day's Night
Week one...........5,529
Weeks one - four...13,502
Total for 09.......29,518
Total to date......31,758

Beatles for Sale
Week one...........3,390
Weeks one - four...8,323
Total for 09.......20,384
Total to date......22,378

Help!
Week one...........6,152
Weeks one - four...15,492
Total for 09.......31,180
Total to date......33,491

Rubber Soul
Week one...........13,202
Weeks one - four...30,884
Total for 09.......60,035
Total to date......63,676

Revolver
Week one...........14,567
Weeks one - four...32,700
Total for 09.......62,601
Total to date......67,171

Pepper
Week one...........17,830
Weeks one - four...40,027
Total for 09.......80,768
Total to date......86,530

The Beatles
Week one...........8,553
Weeks one - four...19,899
Total for 09.......50,431
Total to date......54,175

Magical Mystery Tour
Week one...........5,567
Weeks one - four...13,407
Total for 09.......29,269
Total to date......31,914

Yellow Submarine
Week one...........2,044
Weeks one - four...5,240
Total for 09.......12,437
Total to date......13,571

Abbey Road
Week one...........16,507
Weeks one - four...37,372
Total for 09.......72,791
Total to date......79,849

Let it Be
Week one...........3,992
Weeks one - four...9,452
Total for 09.......24,653
Total to date......27,065

Past Masters
Week one...........5,748
Weeks one - four...13,407
Total for 09.......21,832
Total to date......27,065

The Beatles sold 3.2 individual units in 2009 but that includes more than the remasters (it includes sales of "1," for example.)

Here are the US numbers for the remasters sales alone from Sept. 9 through early December. (Doesn't include the mid-to-late Dec Christmas sales but these are the latest stats I've seen).

1. Abbey Road, 272,220
2 Sgt Peppers: 211,856
3 The Beatles (White Album): 203,452
4 Rubber Soul: 160,642
5 Revolver: 138,380
6 Past Masters: 111,184
7 Help!: 106,568
8 Let It Be: 98,599
9 Magical Mystery Tour: 96,081
10 A Hard Day's Night: 93,245
11 Please Please Me: 73,489
12 With The Beatles: 67,405
13 Beatles For Sale: 64,373
14 Yellow Submarine: 46,460

'The Beatles' stereo box set (16 CDs + DVD) 112,564
'The Beatles in Mono' mono box set (13 CDs) 38,219

So, doing the math, that's a total of 1,894,737 individual units (counting each of the box sets as 1 unit) for the remasters alone. But if you break up the sets and count all of the individual CDs, it's more than 4 million sold.

Not a bad bit of work in three and a half months. Apparently the US loves the Beatles more than the UK.

One other odd bit of trivia. For some reason, Beatles for Sale has been in the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart lately. A couple weeks ago it was as high No. 98 (or something like that), last week it dropped to No. 172 and this week it's ranked No. 200, so it's probably going to drop off soon but it seems weird that it's even been on the chart for weeks now, since it's always been one of the lesser known records here. Maybe there's some newfound appreciation for it? Maybe Amazon or somebody has been having a sale on that one, I don't know.

The only other Beatles CD still on the Top 200 chart is Abbey Road at No. 163.

It's all relative - 600,000 units sold in the UK translates to around 750,000 in the retail channel. Including the box sets, I'd say that translates to around £6 million to EMI, though marketing & manufacturing has to come out of that, and who knows what the HJH's cut of that is?

The UK is thought to be around 8% of worldwide CD sales, so that would indicate over 9 million units sold worldwide (plus box sets).

Now that's amazing for 40+ year-old catalogue product, let's not deny it, but the "1" compilation sold more than that in the USA alone, hence EMI's "muted" reaction. It was a nice bonus and a very profitable project, just not the all-conquering cultural behemoth they'd hoped for... they should've done it 8 years ago, with bonus CDs of b-sides, alternate takes, live & BBC session tracks.

- me late 40s them mid 30s - none of us care much for the fabs. None of us ever bought anything by them. None of us considered buying the latest rereleases. However we knew of a number of 15/16 year olds who had purchased the latest releases or had asked for them for Christmas. So in terms of creating new admirers - definitely successful

Cheers for that.
So if I buy multiple copies of the 'rare' under-selling, 'Yellow Submarine' and keep them in mint condition till 2058, I'll be able to afford that house in Cornwall?
Result!