Ed Sheeran beats Eminem as the most streamed artist of all time on Spotify

“Thinking Out Loud” singer Ed Sheeran has achieved yet another milestone in his career by taking over Eminem as Spotify’s most streamed artist of all time.

According to Spotify’s annual Year in Music, Sheeran is the world’s most streamed artist in 2014 with more than three billion streams to his name, the Independent reports.

Drake, Rihanna and Justin Bieber are some of the other artists recognised in the annual Year in Music list released by the Swedish commercial music streaming and video service. Drake made a surprise entry as he dominated the Global Artist list without even releasing a single album. He managed to defeat his more popular counterparts, including Rihanna and Adele. Drake had over 1.8 billion streams to his name, which made him the world’s most streamed artist of 2015.

2015 turned out to be highly fruitful for Drake as he collaborated on two major hits of the year – “If You're Reading This It's Too Late” and “What A Time To Be Alive” with Future.

R&B artist Rihanna, meanwhile, was declared the most streamed female artist of the year. Pop star Bieber also won the top spot in the list of most streams in a single day. Nearly 36 million Spotify users streamed his tracks on Nov. 13. Bieber also took away the record for the most album streams in a single week as his newly released album “Purpose” was streamed over 205 million times.

In the last 12 months, Spotify churned out more than 75 million listeners who enjoyed 20 billion hours of music service from the streaming giant. In addition, over two billion playlists were created in the previous 12 months on Spotify.

The most streamed song on Spotify in 2015 was “Lean On” by Major Lazer ft. MO and DJ Snake. The song was played by Spotify users over 540 million times, thus making the track the most streamed song of all time on Spotify.

The Weeknd was also among the winners in Spotify's Year in Music, coveting the most streamed album of the year award for “Beauty Behind the Madness.”

Spotify's Year in Music

Top 5 Global Artists (also Top 5 Male Artists): Drake, Ed Sheeran, The Weeknd, Maroon 5, Kanye West

Top 5 Global Female Artists: Rihanna, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj, Beyoncé, Ellie Goulding

Top 5 Global Albums: Beauty Behind The Madness – The Weeknd, If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late – Drake, Peace Is The, Mission – Major Lazer, Stories – Avicii, Title – Meghan Trainor

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