Ed Sheeran Hit Reaches 500M Streams On Spotify

Ed Sheeran

Spotify has revealed that Ed Sheeran’s hit “Thinking Out Loud” has become the first song to hit 500 million streams.

As further evidence of Sheeran’s popularity, some 19 million people listen to him on Spotify each month, his songs have been streamed approximately 2.9 billion times and are included on 38 million playlists.

To celebrate Ed’s massive global influence, Spotify has created The Sheerio Index, an audiographic heat map displaying Sheeran fandom by country. Denmark leads the world with the most Ed Sheeran listening per Spotify user, followed by Norway, Singapore, Sweden and finally his homeland United Kingdom rounding out the top five. See how the rest of the world’s Ed Sheeran listening compares The Sheerio Index map and click on any country to hear its favorite Sheeran tracks.

Ed Sheeran also shared his excitement on the milestone: “Chuffed to hear that Thinking Out Loud has had half a billion plays on Spotify. Being the first artist to hit that milestone is amazing. Thanks to all the people who use this as a wedding song, soundtrack to a date and as a way to woo someone into a Netflix and Chill situation.”

For additional details on The Sheerio Index map and Ed’s streams on Spotify check out the post on Spotify’s Insights blog.

MusicBusinessWorldwide reports that according to Spotify’s own publicly-stated per-stream rate of $0.007 – the approximate amount it pays out to music business rightsholders – that means it’s  generated $3.5m for Sheeran and the music industry, including the star’s label at Atlantic/Warner and his publisher Sony/ATV.

One song.

And that’s not all: according to Spotify, Sheeran tracks have been streamed approximately 2.9 billion times in total on the service.

Using Spotify’s $0.007 per-stream rate once again, that equates to an overall haul of $20.3m for Sheeran and music business rightsholders.