Move over Psy, Adele’s ‘Hello’ is fastest video to hit 1bn views mark

Since Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ became the first video to hit one billion YouTube views back in December 2012, a number of others have reached the mark. None however have done it as fast as the video for Adele’s smash hit ‘Hello’.

The first single from the British singer’s album 25 soared to the billion mark in just 87 days. By comparison, it took Wiz Khalifa’s ‘See You Again’ to reach the magical mark and 158 days for ‘Gangnam Style’ to do so.

It is worth noting however that YouTube has significantly more users than it did when ‘Gangnam Style’ hit the mark, and that reaching a billion views is becoming an increasingly common feat on the video-sharing network.

Read more: Billion-view YouTube videos are happening faster than ever
There are now 17 videos to have been viewed more than a billion times, with the latest additions including Maroon 5’s ‘Sugar’, Major Lazer’s ‘Lean On”, Eminem’s ‘Love The Way You Lie’, LMFAO’s ‘Party Rock Anthem’, OneRepublic’s ‘Counting Stars’, and Sia’s ‘Chandelier’.

“Since 2014, the number of days to reach 1 billion views has dropped dramatically,” the company wrote in a blog post. “In 2013, the fastest track to 1 billion was Katy Perry’s ‘Roar’ at 487 days. In 2014, it was Taylor Swift’s ‘Blank Space’ at 238 days. In 2015, Adele managed to set the bar at 87 days.”