Mults helped Military Wives top the charts

Supermarkets played a major role in making the Military Wives Christmas number one the biggest-selling CD single for more than a year.

While almost 99% of total single sales are now digital, the older average profile of shoppers wanting the Military Wives Choir’s Wherever You Are meant 441,000 copies of the song - 70% of its total sales - were physical rather than online.

In Sainsbury’s, which carried the single in 500 stores, it was the second-biggest CD seller of Christmas week and top-seller the following week.

“We did everything we could to get behind the release of the single, and hosted a visit of the singers to our Barnstaple store,” said a spokesman for the retailer.