Early figures from the Official Charts Company show the single has been downloaded 156,000 times, with the rest of the total derived from streaming.

The star is also set for a US number one, after selling roughly 450,000 downloads in 48 hours.

The song's video, which also premiered on Friday, has been watched more than 70 million times on YouTube.

Directed by Canadian film-maker Xavier Dolan, the video sees Adele raking the coals of a faded relationship.

Her ex-boyfriend is played in flashback scenes by Tristan Wilds, a former child actor from acclaimed crime series The Wire, who released his own Grammy-nominated album, New York: A Love Story, in 2013.

According to Entertainment Weekly, it is also the first music video to be shot with large-format IMAX cameras.