Bollywood playback singer Alka Yagnik’s songs were streamed 14.8 billion times on YouTube in the last 12 months alone, making her the most listened-to artist in the world, according to data released by Liberty Games.
Liberty Games analysed play count from YouTube's Video Music Charts to identify the top music artists in every country and found that Indians dominated the charts worldwide. Apart from Alka Yagnik, singers like Arijit Singh, Kumar Sanu and Udit Narayan also found a spot on the list of the world’s top 10 most listened-to artists.
Meanwhile, songs from the movie Pushpa accounted for the three most listened songs in the world, with a combined 3.1 billion streams, the report said.
Top global artists
At the first spot on the top global artists list is Alka Yagnik with 14.8 billion views, followed by Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny. Udit Narayan is ranked third with 10.6 billion global YouTube listens, and the fourth spot went to Arijit Singh, whose songs were streamed 10.2 billion times in the last one year.
Kumar Sanu ranked as the fifth most popular music artist in terms of YouTube play counts – just ahead of K-pop sensation BTS. Bhojpuri singer Khesari Lal Yadav followed BTS to rank seventh on the list, while Blackpink, with 7.29 billion listens, ranked eighth.
The last two spots were also occupied by Indians – Lata Mangeshkar, widely considered to be one of the greatest singers India has ever produced – ranked ninth, while Shilpi Raj rounded up the list by taking the 10th spot.
Indians dominate the charts
Indians dominated the list of the world’s most listened-to artists on YouTube, with seven out of 10 artists belonging to India.
Arijit Singh was not only among the most popular artists of India, he also topped the list in countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and the Maldives.
Bollywood tracks and Indian pop songs also accounted for seven of the 10 most listened-to songs in the world, with the top three alone coming from just one movie - Pushpa: The Rise.
