BTS Becomes First Group Worldwide to Surpass 10 Billion Annual Spotify Streams

BTS. Photo provided by Big Hit Music.

BigHit Music, BTS' agency, said on Oct. 16 that BTS became the first group in the world to surpass 10 billion annual streams on Spotify, a music streaming platform.

Previously, solo artists including Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and Bad Bunny had recorded more than 10 billion streams in a year. BTS' cumulative streams this year were up 122% from 4.5 billion last year.

The group's fifth full-length album, "ARIRANG," released in March, accounted for more than half of its total streams. As of Oct. 14, the album had surpassed 5 billion cumulative streams, making it the most-streamed album released this year on Spotify. It was about 2 billion streams ahead of Olivia Rodrigo's third full-length album, "you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love," which ranked second.

Daily streams also rose sharply around the release of the new album. Streams increased from about 23 million just before "ARIRANG" was released to 130 million on its release date, March 20. The title track, "SWIM," garnered about 14 million streams on its first day, the highest daily total for a song released this year.

BTS also won two awards at a Japanese music awards ceremony. On Oct. 14, BTS was named Artist of the Year at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards Japan (MTV VMAJ). Last month, the group won in the Best Group Video - International category for the "SWIM" music video.

The MTV VMAJ is the Japanese edition of the U.S. music awards show, the MTV Video Music Awards, and has been held since 2002. This year's ceremony will take place at Tokyo Dome in Japan on Oct. 29.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.