According to the Guinness World Records, Bollywood singer Alka Yagnik racked up an industry leading 15.3 billion YouTube streams last year, with an average of 42 million per day to become the most streamed artist on the Google owned platform for 2022.
The singback artist has been the most popular act on the Google owned platform for the past three years, with 17 billion streams in 2021 and 16.6 billion in 2020.
She ranks first to leading U.S. streamer Bad Bunny (Puerto Rico) who received 14.7 billion streams.
Three male Indian singers round out the top five: Udit Narayan (10.8 billion), Arijit Singh (10.7 billion) and Kumar Sanu (9.09 billion) confirming that with the advent of streaming the top artist can hail from anywhere in the world.
With India now having the largest population in the world, Indian viewers and artists have become more popular on streaming platforms.
GWR, also confirmed that South Korean superstars BTS (7.95 billion) and BLACKPINK (7.03 billion) both made the top ten, while other well-known US artists like The Weeknd Taylor Swift and Drake coming if further down the list at 13th with 5.7 billion, 26th with 4.33 billion and 50th with 2.9 billion respectively.
With a career spanning over four decades, Yagnik, real name Lata Mangeshkar Yagnik, has established herself as one of the most accomplished female playback singers in the Indian film industry. She has recorded over 8000 songs for films and albums in various Indian languages and received numerous awards, including two National Film Awards, two Bengal Film Journalists’ Association Awards, and a record seven Filmfare Awards for Best Female Playback Singer.
Yagnik’s songs have featured in more than a thousand films and she has recorded over twenty thousand songs in different Indian languages. Her tracks have also made it to BBC’s list of top forty Bollywood soundtracks of all-time and she is currently ranked No.1 on YouTube’s Music Charts & Insights list of top global artists as of February 2022, with 283 weeks on the chart and 300 million views.
