Ed Sheeran's Shape of You surpasses 2 billion Spotify streams to maintain status as world's most-listened to song
Entertainment

Ed Sheeran's Shape of You surpasses 2 billion Spotify streams to maintain status as world's most-listened to song

SPOTIFY HAS revealed its most streamed track of all time.

The Ed Sheeran hit Shape of You, was named as the world's most popular song according to the music subscription service.

The track, co-written by Irish Post Award winner Johnny McDaid, has racked up more than two billion listens on the platform.

Sheeran has already reacted to the news, taking to Instagram to say: "Thank you world. First song to two billion streams on Spotify".

The figure equates to quite the money-spinner for Sheeran.

Spotify pays around $0.0084 per stream, which is usually split between the songwriters, record label, producer and artist.

It's estimated that Shape of You will have earned the creative team behind the track around $16.8m.

One Twitter user even crunched the numbers to reveal you'd have had to start in the stone age: 12,758 BC in order to play the song that many times in a row.

Rapper Drake was the most listened to artist of 2018 with the track One Dance accumulating 1.6m streams.

Drake's single God's Plan was the most listened-to with 1.1bn streams. The Chainsmokers hit Closer was the second-most-listened-to song of the year with 1.4m listens.

Sheeran bagged another song in the top 10 with the 2014 ballad Thinking Out Loud also in the top 5 with 1.2m streams.

Ariana Grande was the most-streamed female artist, helped by the release of a new album Sweetener and singles like thank u, next.

Imagine Dragons were the most streamed band of the year, followed by K Pop sensations BTS. Maroon 5, Migos and Coldplay also featured in the top five.