If you want a primer on how music streaming is taking off around the world, consider the year-to-year numbers from the UK, stretching from 275 million plays last July to 500 million through the tracking period that ended July 16, 2015. That's not exactly the "double" that Billboard's headline claimed (math, guys) but that is a remarkable jump. Residents of the UK have streams more than 11.5 billion songs, an 80 percent increase on the first six months of 2014, thanks to Mark Ronson, Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith.
It's impressive to note what a hefty portion of that title can be attributed to "Uptown Funk"—the year's bestselling song thus far in the U.S., from Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars—as the single has gathered 45 million plays by itself. That means nearly one in every ten songs streamed in the UK is "Uptown Funk." Similar to the U.S., quite a few songs make up a large chunk of the streaming totals, as 59 tracks have gathered at least 10 million streams this year.
Perhaps not quite as absurd as "Uptown Funk"s numbers, but getting there, is the chunk of the market held by the leading artist, Ed Sheeran. His discography, which can be boiled down in two albums, gathered 170 million streams in the first six months of the year. Sam Smith also gathered a huge chunk of the totals, topping 100 million streams. So yes, more than half of the songs streamed in the UK so far during 2015 have been by either Sheeran or Smith.
Other popular tracks thus far have been OMI's "Cheerleader" (which has been a smash in the UK far longer than the U.S.) and Hozier's "Take Me To Church," the nos. 2 and 3 songs, respectively.
The British Phonographic Industry predicts the rate of streaming to continue growing, resulting in around 25 billion streams for the year.
