Beyonce's Lion King album "downloaded 949 times in the UK"

The Gift, Beyonce's new album, "The King", reportedly suffered "disappointing" sales during its first week of release, despite its tracklist acclaimed by the stars.

The 37-year-old The Lion King: The Gift, who collaborated with Jay Z and Childish Gambino, released the album on Friday, coinciding with the arrival in theaters of the live-action reboot King Lion.

But the gift apparently would not have had as much impact as Disney would have hoped. According to him, the album would have been downloaded only 949 times on Tuesday.

According to The Sun, Beyonce's new collection would be sold by British newcomer Freya Ridings, whose first self-titled album climbs to first place.

A source told the publication, "The bosses did everything in their power to convince Beyonce to embark on board because they knew she was so loved.

"There was a lot of buzz around the film and Beyonce's involvement, but her derivative album was extremely disappointing."

The insider claims that Disney hoped to replicate the success of the soundtrack of Greatest Showman, one of the best-selling albums of 2018.

The source continues: "For someone like Beyonce, who is perceived as an unstoppable force in music, it is remarkable that she is beaten on the charts by an emerging talent such as Freya."

The official charts released their mid-week report on Tuesday and it was revealed that Freya was second behind Ed Sheeran and her collaboration project # 6.

Freya's album was downloaded 4083 times on Tuesday, putting it in second place.

The gift does not appear in the mid-week update of the album, but it is apparently not eligible because it contains various artists.

Earlier this week, Beyonce was accused of snubbing local Kenyan artists in The Gift with one of Hakuna Matata's first singers, claiming he had not been contacted by the label.

Metro.co.uk has contacted representatives of Beyonce and Disney for comments.