Alka becomes most streamed artist on YouTube

Indian viewers and artists are extremely prevalent on YouTube and continue to rise daily. Bollywood playback singers dominate this platform, as expected. In the past year, Indian singer Alka Yagnik has achieved a new feat on this site. She is now the most streamed artist on YouTube globally (2022).

According to the Guinness World Records, Alka Yagnik racked up an enormous 15.3 billion YouTube streams last year, an average of 42 million per day.

The record book further reported that, “Kolkata-born Yagnik, 56, has been the most popular artist on the platform for the past three years, with 17 billion streams in 2021 and 16.6 billion in 2020.”

“She sits atop YouTube’s 2022 global rankings, ahead of second-placed Bad Bunny (Puerto Rico), who received 14.7 billion streams.”

“A trio of male Indian singers completed the top five: Udit Narayan (10.8 billion), Arijit Singh (10.7 billion), and Kumar Sanu (9.09 billion).”

According to the GWR, South Korean superstars BTS (7.95 billion) and BLACKPINK (7.03 billion) both made the top ten, while other well-known artists had to settle for spots lower down the list: The Weeknd (5.7 billion) was 13th; Taylor Swift (4.33 billion) was 26th; and Drake (2.9 billion) was 50th.

After holding the top spot on YouTube’s weekly music chart since October 2022, Ms. Yagnik, who has won Best Female Playback Singer seven times at the Filmfare Awards, finished the year strong with 366 million streams, significantly outpacing Bad Bunny (258 million) and Narayan (249 million).