Ed Sheeran reaches 500 million Spotify streams, rates #9 in Australia

Ed Sheeran has become the first artist to cross 500 million Spotify streams from one song – and a new Spotify index shows that Australia is the ninth biggest Spotify market in the world for the singer songwriter.

Sheeran was already on the small list of artists who’ve reached 2 billion Spotify streams, alongside Eminem and David Guetta.

But now Spotify reveals that Thinking Out Loud has crossed the 500 million mark.

Sheeran responded, “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.”

Earlier this year, Thinking Out Loud was Spotify’s the third most popular wedding song, after All of Me by John Legend and Bruno Mars' Marry You.

At the same time, the 24-year old who was only discovered by Elton John and Jamie Foxx four years ago, has notched up some impressive numbers for his other songs. Photograph is over 200 million), Don’t is just under 230 million) and I See Fire has hit 300 million.

According to Spotify, over 19 million users listen to Sheeran songs monthly. This gives him the third most worldwide listeners of any artist behind The Weeknd and Calvin Harris.

One in four users has him in “at least one playlist,” the company claims. He appears in an awesome 38 million playlists.

Sheeran is expected to hit another Spotify milestone shortly, when his total streams cross into the 3 billion threshold. His total is currently 2.9 billion and counting.

Spotify also released The Sheerio Index (named after the pet name for his worldwide followers) to track where his material is most listened to. The index was measured by dividing the number of Sheeran streams in each country by the number of Spotify users there), along with links to their favorite Sheeran songs:

(1) Denmark
(2) Norway
(3) Singapore
(4) Sweden
(5) United Kingdom
(6) Ireland
(7) Estonia
(8) New Zealand
(9) Australia
(10) Netherlands
(11) Philippines
(12) Hong Kong
(13) Malaysia
(14) Taiwan
(15) Malta
(16) Finland
(17) Latvia
(18) Portugal
(19) Germany
(20) Poland

[Header image: Dan Curwin]