Ed Sheeran has become the first British artist to receive a special-edition Gold BRIT Billion Award by BPI for exceeding 10 billion streams in the UK.
The 32-year-old pop megastar earned more than one billion streams within the last 12 months, as recorded by the Official Charts Company.
Ed said: “It’s wonderful to receive the first-ever BRIT Billion Award in the UK for 10 billion streams. I want to say a big thank you to my fans. None of this is possible without you guys x.”
Dr. Jo Twist OBE, BPI Chief Executive, commented: “We congratulate Ed Sheeran and his team on this landmark achievement. Ed may represent the pinnacle of streaming success, but he is also among the thousands of artists who are being streamed in the tens and hundreds of millions in the UK each year and who are thriving thanks to streaming and label support. We look forward to honouring many more artists, including future talent, with a BRIT Billion award.”
The record-breaking artist’s UK chart records include becoming the first artist to have four albums in the Official Albums Chart Top 10 for a year, and the first British solo artist to claim a full year at No.1 across his catalogue on the UK singles chart.
He also holds the record for the 10 most-streamed songs of all time with ‘Shape of You’, ‘Perfect’, and ‘Bad Habits’.
Just recently, the ‘Shape of You’ hitmaker smashed the record for the most tickets sold at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles for his ‘Mathematics’ tour, which saw 81,000 gig-goers in attendance.
Ed’s achievement comes after Billie Eilish recently received a BRIT Billion Award for reaching one billion UK streams.
In August, the 21-year-old US star’s hit single ‘Bad Guy’ crossed more than 300 million streams, while she had six other songs exceed the 100 million mark.