BTS surpasses 10 billion annual streams on Spotify... led by 'Arirang'

BTS surpassed 10 billion cumulative streams on Spotify this year, setting a record as the first group to do so. According to their agency BigHit Music, as of the 16th, BTS recorded over 10 billion cumulative streams on the global music streaming platform Spotify this year. This figure had only been achieved by world-renowned solo pop stars such as Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, and Bad Bunny, making BTS the first group to reach 10 billion streams in a single year. BTS’s streams this year increased by 122% from 4.5 billion last year. At the center of this growth is their fifth full-length album, ARIRANG, released in March. As of the 14th, the album has surpassed 5 billion cumulative streams, recording the highest number of streams on Spotify among new releases in 2026. It is about 2 billion streams ahead of Olivia Rodrigo’s third full-length album, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, which ranks second. On the day of its release, March 20, ARIRANG’s daily streams soared to 130 million, a significant increase from around 23 million just before the release. On the same day, all 14 tracks from the album occupied the top 14 positions on the Daily Top Songs Global chart. The title track, SWIM, was streamed about 14 million times on its first day, marking the highest daily streams for a song released in 2026. The instrumental track No.29 also surpassed 200 million streams. Meanwhile, BTS won the ″Artist of the Year″ award at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards Japan on the 14th, and in September, the music video for SWIM was selected as the winner in the ″Best Group Video/International″ category. The MTV VMAJ main ceremony will be held on the 29th at Tokyo Dome in Japan.