The X Factor winner Leona Lewis’s first release has entered the UK singles charts at number one.

The 22-year-old’s song Bleeding Love hit the top spot with the biggest first week sales of any single this year. Released last week, the track sold 218,000 copies – more than the rest of the top five put together.

The X Factor producer and judge Simon Cowell said: "The sales are incredible. I'm absolutely thrilled for Leona, she thoroughly deserves it."

Lewis won The X Factor a year ago and has since been hyped as the biggest discovery to be made by the ITV1 talent show. Cowell, who runs record label Syco, under the SonyBMG umbrella, resisted the temptation to make an album quickly and cash in on Lewis’s X Factor popularity. Instead, he gave the singer a year and an array of resources to make her first album.

Her quick ascent to number one has ended the Sugababes’ four-week run at the top with the hit About You Now. They now sit at number four, after Take That’s Rule The World slipped into second position and McFly’s The Heart Never Lies hit number three.

Lewis already counts Rod Stewart and American music mogul Clive Davis as fans, but detractors have predicted she will become another forgotten reality show contestant.

In an interview with The Sunday Times earlier this month Lewis defended her X Factor start and denied she was a puppet of Syco: “People criticise The X Factor and say it’s just reality TV, but it gives people like me a chance to be seen and heard.”

“At every moment I had a choice. I could say yes to this, or no to this. If there was a great song and I really felt it, then I’m definitely going to want to sing it. I want it to represent me and the journey I’ve had, not just from The X Factor but before it, trying to get into the music industry. People criticise The X Factor and say it’s just reality TV, but it gives people like me a chance to be seen and heard.”

Her album, Spirit, is released on November 5.

Explore Music

• CD Reviews

• Live Reviews

• Classical

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010