Ed Sheeran becomes first British artist to hit 2 billion streams on Spotify

The singer-songwriter becomes the first British artist to reach the milestone on the streaming service.

Ed Sheeran has hit 2 billion streams on Spotify, the music service has confirmed.

Sheeran becomes the first British artist to reach the milestone, and only the second artist to do so in Spotify history after US rapper Eminem.

"Ed achieving two billion streams on just two albums is a phenomenal achievement," Mark Mitchell, General Manager, Atlantic Records UK, said. It not only highlights the popularity of his timeless sound and the explosive growth of his army of fans, it also demonstrates how great music can be successful on all formats.

"He’s already topped charts around the world with x but we’re not stopping, he’s midway through his world tour and we’re still working as hard as ever to help him smash even more records."

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Kevin Brown, Spotify’s head of label relations for Europe, added: "Breaking the two billion streams barrier on Spotify is evidence – were it needed - of Ed Sheeran’s enormous popularity among the 60 million music fans on the service. Ed Sheeran is quite simply one of the best-loved artists on Spotify globally, and we are thrilled that he has achieved this milestone.

"Ed and Atlantic truly embraced the power of the Spotify platform with the launch strategy for X. This made a significant contribution to the phenomenal launch success of the album on Spotify through connecting it with the widest audience possible. That it continues to be enormously popular with our users almost a year later and is still winning new fans is testament to the quality of the album and the enduring appeal of Ed as an artist."

Meanwhile, Official Charts recently announced that X was the most popular album in independent record shops over the last 12 months.

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