Billboard Global 200

• 1. Introduction

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  The Billboard Global 200 premiered on the 15th of September 2020. The first song to reach number one was "WAP" by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion. At its core, the chart answers a question no major music publication had formally tackled: which songs are truly the most popular on Earth? It measures that through what people actually stream and pay to download. It took years to build, and the obstacles were not creative but logistical. How do you weigh a paid subscriber's stream in one country against a free-tier listener's in another? Can a song recorded in Spanish or Korean reach number one when every market is counted equally? And which artists have managed to hold the global top spot not for a single week but for months at a time?

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• 2. The Data Problem

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  Billboard first announced a global chart on the 6th of May 2019, at that point calling it the "Global 100." The plan was to launch before the end of that year. What extended the timeline was the challenge of persuading streaming platforms and digital retailers across dozens of markets to share their data. Billboard called this "not an easy task." Deanna Brown, president of MRC Data and MRC Media & Info, said the charts would help the industry identify the most powerful artists worldwide. She pointed to a second aim: tracking which songs were gaining traction outside the United States. The driving motivation, as Billboard stated, was "to expose people to music from multiple territories." Billboard called the finished product "the first authoritative charts ranking the top songs globally."

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• 3. Counting Streams and Sales

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  The formula behind the Global 200 treats one track sale as equivalent to 200 premium streams or 900 ad-supported streams. The ratio between ad-supported and premium is 4.5 to 1. Paid subscriptions carry more weight than free-tier listening, and direct-to-consumer site sales are excluded. The formula covers streaming and download data from more than 200 territories, but radio airplay is not factored in. MRC Data explained that radio is not reliably measured in many territories. Even where it is tracked, the methodology varies too much from country to country. This places the Global 200 closer in design to the Rolling Stone Top 100 than to the Billboard Hot 100, which does include airplay. The chart follows a Friday-through-Thursday tracking week, is compiled by Luminate through their Music Connect product, and is published every Tuesday on Billboard.com.

  The Hot 100's "recurrent" rule removes descending songs once they fall below number 25 after 52 weeks, or below number 50 after 20 weeks. The Global 200 has no such rule. A song from any period in music history can chart. Billboard worked with data providers on what it called "audit guidelines" to reduce the effect of manufactured streams. Each provider runs its own safeguards before passing data to Billboard.

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• 4. The Companion Chart

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  "Hawai" by Maluma became the first number-one song on the Billboard Global Excl. US chart, for the week dated the 19th of September 2020. Billboard launched this second chart alongside the Global 200 on the same day. The formula is identical, but all US streaming and sales data are removed. Billboard explained the goal: having each chart run 200 titles deep while "presenting a view of titles excluding U.S. influence was of great importance." Side by side, the two charts show whether a song's global standing is driven by American streams or by more widely distributed listening. For the chart's first week, the number-one positions on the two charts went to two different songs, immediately demonstrating why Billboard felt both were needed.

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• 5. Record Holders

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  Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" has spent 20 weeks at number one on the Global 200. That total spans the years 2020 through 2025, the most weeks at the top for any single song. "Blinding Lights" by The Weeknd leads the all-time list for total chart appearances at 278 weeks, still ongoing. Ed Sheeran's "Perfect" matches that figure at 278 total weeks as well. BTS leads all acts with eight number-one singles, followed by Taylor Swift with six and Bad Bunny with five. Swift holds the record for total chart entries at 188. On the 4th of May 2024, she also set the single-week entry record by placing 34 songs on the chart simultaneously.

  BTS was the first act to simultaneously top the Global 200, the Global Excl. US chart, and the Billboard Hot 100. They are the only act to have done so with five different songs. Ariana Grande was the first female artist to accomplish the same. Sam Smith was the first non-binary artist to top all three charts at once. Bad Bunny became the first Latino, Hispanic, and Spanish-language artist to do so.

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