Research Analysis South Africa

A world-first for Justin Bieber: two billion YouTube views

LONDON, UK: Justin Bieber has made history, becoming the first person to achieve 2 billion YouTube views on his official YouTube channel according to Famecount.com the social media statistics service. The star achieved the milestone over the weekend and now counts 2 004 247 332 views.
A world-first for Justin Bieber: two billion YouTube views

Bieber has dominated social media since the release of his debut single in 2009. To date he has over 37 million Facebook fans, 13.9 million Twitter followers and over 1 million YouTube subscribers on his main channel - JustinBieberVEVO. In the last month alone his YouTube channel received a massive 94 million views, thanks partly to the popularity of his new single Mistletoe, which has already received over 26 million views. Bieber also holds the world record for most popular single video on YouTube - Baby with almost 650 million views to date.

Building an army of 'Beliebers'

The Bieber phenomenon started in 2007 when his mother uploaded videos of the 12-year-old from Ontario, Canada singing. They quickly went viral and before you could say 'Baby Baby' the young star was discover by US manager Scooter Braun and signed by Usher and Island Records. Thanks to the powers of social media and an army of "Beliebers" a star was born.

In October 2010, Bieber narrowly missed making YouTube history when Lady Gaga beat him by days to the billion view milestone, although the star has since opened up a substantial lead on the Queen of Pop who sits at number two with 1.88 billion views. However he's yet to steal the Famecount aggregated social media number 1 spot from Lady Gaga - who remains the Queen of Twitter with over 15 million followers, and also has more Facebook Fans than Bieber, according to Famecount's rankings.

Rihanna is the 3rd largest YouTube star with more than 1.7 billion views and currently the fastest growing. In June this year Rihanna toppled Lady Gaga as number 1 female star on Facebook, although Eminem remains the reigning king of Facebook with 48.5 million fans.

Top Music Stars on YouTube (by views on main official channel)

Channel NameSubs/ week Total Subscribers Weekly Views Monthly Views Total Views
1 JustinBieber VEVO Canada25,894 1,049,519 26,643,457 93,614,637 2,004,247,332
2 LadyGaga VEVO United States5,262 1,223,841 10,536,148 47,441,360 1,883,101,471
3 Rihanna VEVO Barbados38,651 1,597,548 36,892,616 114,765,500 1,709,644,915
4 Eminem VEVO United States8,119 1,137,670 14,237,536 58,966,204 1,516,148,821
5 Shakira VEVO Colombia5,842 355,752 14,844,801 62,846,551 1,217,023,100
6 BlackEyedPeas VEVO United States7,233 491,665 9,089,744 36,758,266 1,113,232,031
7 BritneySpears VEVO United States9,090 376,063 10,393,887 43,157,089 1,014,550,948
8 Beyonce VEVO United States20,732 473,839 26,485,413 81,188,382 1,007,369,609
9 ChrisBrown VEVO United States14,375 461,364 8,304,760 35,999,620 868,352,534
10 MichaelJackson VEVO United States2,742 206,104 6,206,051 24,958,218 810,500,335

Source: Famecount.com

Famecount is an independent company that tracks and ranks social media fame. It operates famecount.com, a free service covering Facebook, Twitter and YouTube statistics and trends. It also provides groovecount.com, tracking music statistics across multiple social networks and digital services. A forthcoming professional version of the site, Famecount Pro, provides enhanced data and analytics for brands and professional users of social networks. The research study sourced its social media data from Famecount Pro.

Go to: http://www.famecount.com
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