LOS ANGELES (Reuters Life!) – The Beatles sold more than two million individual songs and more than 450,000 albums worldwide in their first week of release on Apple's iTunes store, Apple said yesterday.

'Abbey Road' was the top-selling digital album in the US iTunes store, ending at No. 6 for the week. 'The Beatles Box Set' was No. 10 on the iTunes US album charts.

'Here Comes the Sun' was the best-selling Beatles digital single but did not place in the top 10 for the week, Apple said. In the UK the song 'Hey Jude' reached the national Top 40 on the strength of its download sales.

The Beatles catalogue was released on iTunes, the world's No.1 digital retailer, for the first time on November 16, ending years of negotiations between Apple Inc and Apple Corp (the company set up by The Beatles in the late 1960s).