Indian playback singer Alka Yagnik had a massive 15.3 billion YouTube streams last year. Most Streamed Acts on YouTube (2022).
Kolkata-born 56-year-old Yagnik has been the platform’s most popular artist for the past three years, with 17 billion views in 2021 and 16.6 billion views in 2020.
She leads YouTube’s 2022 global rankings, ahead of No. 2 Bad Bunny (Puerto Rico) with 14.7 billion streams.
Three Indian male singers made it into the top five. Udit Narayan (10.8 billion), Arijit Singh (10.7 billion) and Kumar Sanu (9.09 billion).
South Korean superstars BTS (7.95 billion) and BLACKPINK (7.03 billion) both made the top 10, but other big names had to settle for the bottom of the list. The Weeknd (5.7 billion) was his 13th. Taylor Swift (4.33 billion) he was 26th. Drake (2.9 billion) he was 50th.
YouTube
Often referred to as the “Queen of Playback Singing”, Yagnik is one of Bollywood’s most iconic voices.
During her 40-year long career, she has recorded over 20,000 songs for movies and albums.
Yagnik has won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer seven times. A feat only matched by Asha Bhosle.
The first of Yagnik’s record 38 nominations was for the song “Mere Angne Mein” from the film. Lawalis (1981), her most recent being “Agar Tum Saath Ho” Tamasha (2015).
She has held the #1 ranking on YouTube’s weekly music charts since October 2022, ending the final week of the year strongly with 366 million streams. This is well ahead of Bad Bunny (258 million) and Narayan (249 million).
Indian artists dominated YouTube streams in 2022, tracked by music industry analyst ChartMasters.
With 12.3 billion (80%) of Yagnik’s 2022 streams registered in India, she was also Pakistan’s most listened artist (683 million streams).
About 25% of YouTube users are from India, according to ChartMasters. By continent, the market share is 45% in Asia and 28% in Latin America.
want more? Stay up to date with Guinness World Records by following us on our social media channels. You can find us on Facebook. twitterInstagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Snapchat Discover – including an in-depth Curious Casebook series.
Please do not forget. We are also on YouTube.
Still not enough? Click here to purchase the latest book. It’s chock-full of amazing record-breaking stories.
