Ed Sheeran’s ‘Divide’ Smashes Spotify Records For First-Day Streams

Ed Sheeran continues to take the world by storm, with the long-awaited release of his new album Divide (styled ÷) exciting Sheerios around the world on Friday (March 3) -- and subsequently breaking one day stream records on Spotify.

After The Weekend set the bar at 29 million for first-day streams for an album with Starboy in November 2016, Sheeran came in and nearly doubled that, with 56,727,861 streams of ÷ on March 3 alone. 

The British singer-songwriter also crushed The Weeknd’s record of best one-day streams for an artist, with his 68,695,172 streams flying high above the Starboy singer’s 40.3 million. But it doesn’t stop there.

Sheeran also set the record for best one day streams for a track, with "Shape of You" getting more than 10 million streams on Friday. Who did he top with that giant number? Himself, of course, after "Shape of You" had set the record on Jan. 6 with 7,940,950 streams.

Amidst setting all of these records, all 16 of his ÷ tracks went straight into the Spotify Global Top 50 streaming chart, as well as the top 50 in 13 international markets (UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland), according to Spotify. And in the UK and Ireland, the 16 tracks comprise the entire top 16 for the countries.

Unsurprisingly, Sheeran stands as the most streamed Spotify artist, with more than 45.5 million monthly listeners. In addition to the streaming success, industry forecasters’ early predictions say that Sheeran is set for a No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200, projecting that ÷ will start with 350,000 to 425,000 equivalent album units -- the biggest debut of 2017 so far.

Source:billboard
- Agencies