One Direction score US chart hit

One Direction won best British single, for What Makes You Beautiful, at Tuesday night's Brit Awards

One Direction have scored the highest debut for a UK act in the US singles chart for almost 14 years, with What Makes You Beautiful.

Their song entered the chart at 28, after selling 132,000 downloads in its first week, Nielsen SoundScan said.

British one-hit wonder Jimmy Ray's Are You Jimmy Ray? entered the Billboard Singles Hot 100 at 26 in February 1998.

Meanwhile, Adele album 21 sold 730,000 copies last week, making it her biggest sales week on the US chart in a year.

X Factor runners-up One Direction - Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson - will hope to emulate the US success of the Spice Girls who were the last British group to score a higher debut single on the US singles chart.

Wannabe, which entered the chart at number 11 in June 1997, went on to spend four straight weeks at the top of the Hot 100.

Glee cover

But initial success in the US singles chart is no guarantee of prolonged success in the States.

When the Lights Go Out - the second single released in the US by 1990s British boy band Five - reached number 10 - but subsequent releases failed to make an impact.

And while Take That broke through in the US when Back for Good hit number seven in 1995, it remains their only stateside hit.

Adele aimed a rude gesture at Brit organisers on Tuesday after her acceptance speech was cut short

One Direction's UK boy band rivals The Wanted have so far sold 418,000 downloads of their single Glad You Came, which is currently at number 23 on the Billboard chart.

Their UK number one, which entered the US singles charts at number 85 in January, was covered on high school musical show Glee, in an episode shown in the US on Tuesday night.

Adele's 21, meanwhile, kept the late Whitney Houston's greatest hits off the top of the Billboard 200 album chart.

Adele's huge weekly sales figures, which ensured a 21st week at number one, follow her comeback performance at the Grammys on Sunday 12 February, at which she won all six awards that she was nominated for.

The album 21, which has sold more than 18 million copies worldwide, also replaced Houston's The Bodyguard as the longest-running number one album by a female artist.

The singer was at the centre of controversy at the Brit Awards at London's O2 Arena on Tuesday night when her acceptance speech for the night's biggest award, best album, was cut short.

Also at Tuesday night's Brits, One Direction's Harry Styles made headlines when, picking up the best single award, as voted for by listeners of Capital FM, he thanked the BBC's Radio 1.