Ariana Grande albums and songs sales

CSPC 2021 Ariana Grande albums and songs sales

Whether it’s for her music or for her personal life, the name Ariana Grande has been inescapable in recent years.

During the last year, the pop superstar hasn’t slow down her impressive pace in releasing hits with the era positions as well as are remix of Save Your Tears.

How good is she selling? How does she compare to her peers?

Having amassed 19 Top 10 hits since her debut in 2013, Ariana Grande has impressively turned into one of the defining acts of the late 2010s and early 2020s.

positions, the album, went straight to the top in the US, her 5th chart leader. positions, the single, went straight to the top too, her 5th chart leader as well. Save Your Tears increased her tally to 6 since then.

How much has these records sold to date, though? Have expectations of her last album been entirely fulfilled?

As usual, I’ll be using the Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept in order to relevantly gauge her results. This concept will not only bring you sales information for all Ariana Grande‘s albums, physical and download singles, as well as audio and video streaming. In fact, it will also determine their true popularity.

If you are not yet familiar with the CSPC method, below is a nice and short video of explanations. I fully recommend watching it before getting into the sales figures. Of course, if you are a regular visitor feel free to skip the video and get into the numbers directly.

The Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept (CSPC)

There are two ways to understand this revolutionary concept. The first is the Scribe video posted below. If you are unaware of the CSPC method, you will get the full idea within just a few minutes.

If you are a mathematical person, and want to know the full method as well as formulas, you can read the full introduction article.

Now let’s get into the artist’s sales figures in detail in order to apply this concept and define the act’s true popularity!

Ariana Grande Album Sales

CSPC 2021 Ariana Grande album sales breakdowns

Original Album Sales – Comments

CSPC 2021 Ariana Grande album sales list

Having released 6 studio albums already, Ariana Grande‘s album sales stand at just over 6 million units. Clearly, an average of barely 1 million per album doesn’t seem to be so impressive.

However, pure sales aren’t how the music industry works anymore. Pure album sales are now something of the past.

Artists who first debuted after the arrival of streaming never got the chance to amass fans who buy their records.

Young artists tend to attract young followers and Ariana Grande is no exception. These young followers have never been into purchasing albums.

That being said, one has to applaud the consistency of her album sales. For an artist who debuted in 2013 and only got truly big in recent years, these numbers are nothing to be ashamed about.

The diva’s top seller, My Everything, was the 13th best-selling album of 2014, shifting 1.8 million units that year. Though not as big, 2016’s Dangerous Woman was the 28th best-selling album that year with 0.9 million units.

The last three albums Sweetener, Thank U, Next and Positions. came out when streaming was already inevitable. Naturally, they sold less than their predecessors although their numbers are still good by today’s standards.

When looking at the pure sales of these records, one would assume Ariana Grande‘s popularity hit an all-time low since Sweetener. Is that really the case, though?

We notice once again that looking at results from every format before drawing conclusions is fundamental. Let’s continue our study with singles’ formats.

Ariana Grande songs sales

CSPC - Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept - Physical singles

Physical Singles

CSPC 2021 Ariana Grande physical singles sales

As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 3 ratio between albums and digital singles.

In our goal of accuracy and reliability we need to study physical singles sales of an artist even if this format has been dead throughout the career of the said artist.

This is exactly the case for Ariana Grande who has been around since 2013, years after the collapse of this market.

She still has 14 singles which have been issued in CD or LP format. Some have got regular releases in continental Europe like Problem, Bang Bang, and the recent No Tears Left To Cry, which amassed some sales mostly from Germany, estimated in 15,000, 10,000, and 5,000 respectively.

Then she had two specific releases of singles paired with a poster, The Way (10,000) in the US and Focus (3,000) in Japan. Naturally, all these releases sold very few copies.

In recent years, collectors released through her website during a limited time have been more and more frequent.

All of them sold some thousands, with Rain On Me flying to 25,000 copies.

CSPC - Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept - Download music iTunes Amazon Google Melon

Digital Songs

CSPC 2021 Ariana Grande digital singles sales

As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 1,5 ratio between albums and digital singles.

Ariana Grande started strong in the US with the 2 million selling single The Way. She failed to generate interest abroad though.

Her subsequent singles have not been successful even in the US. Thanks to the massive market of downloads by 2013 it was still enough to sell nearly 6.9 million units from songs of Yours Truly.

The era My Everything was both more consistent and more global. She became big in various markets such as the UK, South Korea, Japan, Brazil, and Mexico. The result is amazing.

Problem featuring Iggy Azalea is at 8.43 million sales while Bang Bang with Jessie J and Nicki Minaj sold over 7.3 million.

Four more songs sold well also, Break Free, One Last Time, Love Me Harder, and Best Mistake combine for an impressive 10 million units.

In total, songs from My Everything sold a sublime 26.6 million. This is all the more impressive considering that download sales were declining strongly by 2014/2015 as streaming began to take over.

Speaking about the market going downhill, by 2016 downloads were already the shadow of what they used to be 5 years earlier. This limited a lot the impact of singles from Dangerous Woman, which by themselves were also not as strong as their predecessors.

The title track, at nearly 2 million, Side To Side, at 2.5 million, and Into You at 1.6 million still moved great numbers. Remaining songs haven’t been as strong although they contribute to the era total of 7.7 million.

From Sweetener, No Tears Left To Cry sold very well, even if very well by 2018 standards is only a bit more than a million.

Impressively, the songs from Thank U, Next. have managed to almost match those of Sweetener in terms of total sales. Although no song has reached seven digit figures yet, these numbers are very respectable given how obsolete downloads were by 2019.

Naturally, figures from Positions singles are dreadful, as is the market nowadays.

Among other tracks, Santa Tell Me leads the way thanks to its huge success in South Korea and growing impact elsewhere year after year.

In total, Ariana Grande has sold 55 million downloads and ringtones – a great total for someone who missed out on the peak years of those.

CSPC - Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept - Streaming platforms numbers

Streaming

Streaming is made up of audio and video streams. Our CSPC methodology includes both to better reflect the real popularity of each track. The main source of data for each avenue is respectively Spotify and YouTube. To factor in the growing impact of multiple Asian countries where these platforms aren’t always the go-to site for music streaming, more sources have been added.

In order to account for their real popularity in each relevant country, the below sources have been used along with the mentioned ratios that reflect the market share of each area.

Audio Streams
– South Korea : Genie streams * 3.05 (consistent with Gaon streaming numbers)
– Japan : AWA streams * 100/5.5 (AWA has 5.5% of the Japanese streaming market)– Elsewhere : Spotify streams * (370 – 8.5 – 9.5 – 33 – 9) / 207 (370 million global subscribers minus 8.5 million from South Korea minus 9.5 million from Japan minus 33 million from China divided by the number of Spotify only users minus 9 million more Asian users) + Genie streams * 3.05 (uses Genie rather than Spotify to extrapolate markets like Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam)

Video Streams– China* : QQ video streams * 50 if the song is available for audio stream, QQ video streams * 5 elseway (scale built based on known figures for several major artists)– Elsewhere : Youtube views

*since 96.4% of Chinese streaming platforms are free users, that paid-for users pay less than $2 a month and that they are also used as video streaming platforms, their streams are weighted on par with YouTube streams.

Audio Stream value – 1500 plays equal 1 album unit
Video Stream value – 11,750 views equal 1 album unit

Equivalent Albums Sales (EAS) = ( Spotify * 310/207 + Genie * 3.05*2 + AWA * 100/5.5 ) / 1500 + ( QQ views* 50(or 5) + YouTube ) / 11750

Top Hits

CSPC 2021 Ariana Grande top streaming songs

This list sums up perfectly why pure album sales aren’t the be-all and end-all of success in our day and age. The three singles from Thank U, Next. are responsible for 4.4 million EAS!

On Spotify, the smash hit 7 Rings. is well past the 1.5 billion barrier, it’s coming after 2 billion on YouTube.

Thank U, Next, Side to Side and No Tears Left to Cry have also jump into the bandwagon of billionaires. The first is her biggest track in South Korea while the second leads YouTube results at 2.4 billion.

Speaking about songs at 1 billion Spotify streams, Bang Bang and Into You are almost there, while One Last Time only need that, a bit of time.

But Ariana Grande‘s tremendous streaming power goes beyond these songs. Impressively, 9 more songs are all in the 640-770 million range.

Streaming was hardly at its peak in 2014, but that’s not stopping the singles from My Everything from achieving huge numbers as 4 of them make the singer’s personal top 10.

On YouTube, Ariana Grande also does wonders. Soon, One Last Time will be her 10th to hit a billion. Impressive!

No need to say that she crushes Asian streaming platforms as well, with amazing scores everywhere.

As mentioned, Thank U, Next dominates in South Korea with 7 Rings just behind. Bang Bang is China’s largest hit while in Japan the crown goes to Break Free.

As an illustration of a very successful catalog, a distinct song leads on each platform.

Album-wise My Everything has now been topped by Thank U, Next. They stand at 5.9 million EAS and 6.5 million EAS, respectively.

Full catalog breakdown

If you are familiar with the artist’s catalog and want to check details of each and every song, you can access to all of them right here.

Keep yourself up to date

Our website provides you a fantastic tool which fetchs updated Spotify streams as you request them, use it to watch these results grow day after day!

Ariana Grande compilations sales

It sounds fairly logical to add together weighted sales of one era – studio album, physical singles, downloads, streams – to get the full picture of an album’s popularity. For older releases though, they also generate sales of various live, music videos and compilation albums.

All those packaging-only records do not create value, they exploit the value originating from the parent studio album of each of its tracks instead. Inevitably, when such compilations are issued, this downgrades catalog sales of the original LP.

Thus, to perfectly gauge the worth of these releases, we need to re-assign sales proportionally to its contribution of all the compilations which feature its songs. The following table explains this method.

The distribution process

CSPC 2021 Ariana Grande The Best sales distribution

How to understand this table? If you check this example of the The Best line, those figures mean it sold 135,000 units worldwide. The second statistics column means all versions of all the songs included on this package add for 10,456,061 equivalent album sales from streams of all types.

The second part on the right of the table shows how many equivalent streams are coming from each original album, plus the share it represents on the overall package.

Thus, streaming figures tell us songs from My Everything are responsible for 50% of The Best tracklist attractiveness, which means it generated 67,000 of its 135,000 album sales and so on for the other records.

Compilations sales figures listing

CSPC 2021 Ariana Grande compilation sales list

Full Length related records Sales – Summary

CSPC 2021 Ariana Grande compilation sales distribution

Here is the most underestimated indicator of an album’s success – the amount of compilation sales of all kinds it generated. Due to the dependency of sales of the original studio albums on these releases, they are a key piece of the jigsaw.

These numbers are obtained by applying the method from the section The distribution process to all packages listed under Compilation sales figures listing category.

Chinese downloads are weighted as per their price, at selling price / 50, which is 0.4 for Ariana Grande‘s albums.

Total Album (all types) Sales per Country

CSPC 2021 Ariana Grande album sales by market

Please note country-specific numbers may miss sales of a few minor releases, although totals are complete.

Ariana Grande Career CSPC Results

CSPC 2021 Ariana Grande albums and songs sales

So, after checking all the figures, how many overall equivalent album sales has each Ariana Grande album achieved? Well, at this point we hardly need to add up all of the figures defined in this article!

Albums CSPC results

In the following results table, all categories display figures in equivalent album sales. If different, pure sales are listed between parentheses.

'Av.' stands for Average, 'LD' for Last Day.

As a reminder:

  • Studio Album: sales of the original album
  • Other Releases: sales of compilations generated thanks to the album
  • Physical Singles: sales of physical singles from the album (ratio 3/10)
  • Download Singles: sales of digital singles from the album (ratio 1,5/10)
  • Streaming: equivalent album sales of all the album tracks (ratio 1/1500 for Audio stream and 1/6750 for Video stream)

Artist career totals

See where the artist ranks among remaining singers


And there we have it!

When we last updated her discography in October 2019, Ariana Grande was up to 33.11 million EAS. Less than 2 years later, she rockets to 49.18 million.

At nearly 12 million EAS, My Everything is among the Top 5 albums released in 2014, only surpassed by blockbusters such as Ed Sheeran‘s X and Taylor Swift‘s 1989.

Thank U, Next now ranks 2nd among her albums, having recently eclipsed Dangerous Woman. Both album are around 7.7 million.

With these numbers, it’s hard to believe that the commercial reception of Dangerous Woman was often considered cold.

Sure, it is lower than My Everything, but it was easily strong enough to grant a heavy anticipation for her next era and keep her hey-days well alive. At times, it’s good to let things roll out before jumping on conclusions.

According recording 5.3-7.7 million sales three times in a row, positions hasn’t been able to do as well, sitting at 3.6 million.

A bit like Sweetener, it lacked a ground breaking hit. It has been very consistent through, with all tracks getting heavy streams, so her selling power remains intact.

When we first reviewed her career in November 2017, she was at 18.36 million units. She was then a teen star a la Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez.

Now she is a global pop star who already surpassed the career total of veteran diva Kylie Minogue. In upcoming weeks, she will top the Spice Girls. That’s how big Ariana Grande has become.

Singles CSPC results

The list is compiled in album equivalent sales generated by each song. Therefore, these figures are not merged units of singles formats. Instead, it includes weighted sales of the song’s physical single, download, ringtone and streaming as well as its share among sales of all albums on which it is featured.

1. 2014 – Jessie J, Ariana Grande & Nicki MinajBang Bang [My Everything]2,860,000
2. 2014 – Ariana Grande ft. Iggy AzaleaProblem [My Everything]2,540,000
3. 2019 – Ariana Grande7 Rings [Thank U, Next]2,310,000
4. 2016 – Ariana Grande ft. Nicki MinajSide To Side [Dangerous Woman]2,120,000
5. 2018 – Ariana GrandeThank U, Next [Thank U, Next]2,050,000
6. 2014 – Ariana Grande ft. ZeddBreak Free [My Everything]1,840,000
7. 2014 – Ariana GrandeOne Last Time [My Everything]1,800,000
8. 2016 – Ariana GrandeInto You [Dangerous Woman]1,630,000
9. 2018 – Ariana GrandeNo Tears Left to Cry [Sweetener]1,590,000
10. 2016 – Ariana GrandeDangerous Woman [Dangerous Woman]1,300,000
11. 2014 – Ariana Grande & The WeekndLove Me Harder [My Everything]1,270,000
12. 2018 – Ariana GrandeGod Is a Woman [Sweetener]1,080,000


If you feel inspired by this list, we just created this CSPC Ariana Grande playlist on Spotify!

Discography results

Thanks to our new ASR (Artist Success Rating) concept, we know that her sales represent 10.16 million times the purchase of her discography. Coupled with her total sales, it translates into an ASR score of 127. The ranking of all artists studied so far is available too at this link.

Records & Achievements

  • At 28.87 billion streams on Spotify, Ariana Grande is the most streamed female artist of the platform, 9th overall.
  • At 5.62 billion streams on Spotify, Thank U, Next is the 5th most streamed female album of the platform.
  • At 6,306,000 EAS, My Everything is the 3rd most successful 2014 album on combined audio and video streams.
  • At 11,978,000 EAS, My Everything is the 5th most successful album from 2014.
  • At 7,734,000 EAS, Thank U, Next is the 4th most successful album from 2019.
  • At 10 days, Thank U, Next is the fastest song to hit 100 million streams on both Spotify and YouTube.

NB: EAS means Equivalent Album Sales.



Dynamic Spotify Key Performance Indicators

Please note that numbers below are retrieved automatically, so they will evolve day by day unlike previously listed data which is valid as of the publication date of the article.

Ariana Grande

Ariana

Current followers count: 95,343,402
95,000,000 followers have been reached on 03/14/24
94,000,000 followers have been reached on 02/08/24
95,000,000 followers have been reached on 11/20/23
94,000,000 followers have been reached on 09/22/23
93,000,000 followers have been reached on 08/19/23
92,000,000 followers have been reached on 07/15/23
91,000,000 followers have been reached on 06/09/23
90,000,000 followers have been reached on 05/02/23
89,000,000 followers have been reached on 03/28/23
88,000,000 followers have been reached on 02/21/23
87,000,000 followers have been reached on 01/18/23
86,000,000 followers have been reached on 12/22/22
85,000,000 followers have been reached on 11/24/22
84,000,000 followers have been reached on 10/20/22
83,000,000 followers have been reached on 09/16/22
82,000,000 followers have been reached on 08/02/22
81,000,000 followers have been reached on 07/03/22
80,000,000 followers have been reached on 06/02/22
79,000,000 followers have been reached on 04/30/22
78,000,000 followers have been reached on 04/05/22
77,000,000 followers have been reached on 03/11/22
76,000,000 followers have been reached on 02/12/22
75,000,000 followers have been reached on 01/22/22
74,000,000 followers have been reached on 01/02/22
73,000,000 followers have been reached on 12/14/21
72,000,000 followers have been reached on 11/24/21
71,000,000 followers have been reached on 11/02/21
70,000,000 followers have been reached on 10/11/21
69,000,000 followers have been reached on 09/18/21
68,000,000 followers have been reached on 08/29/21
67,000,000 followers have been reached on 08/09/21
66,000,000 followers have been reached on 07/20/21
65,000,000 followers have been reached on 06/30/21
64,000,000 followers have been reached on 06/12/21
63,000,000 followers have been reached on 05/24/21
62,000,000 followers have been reached on 05/02/21
61,000,000 followers have been reached on 04/11/21
60,000,000 followers have been reached on 03/22/21
59,000,000 followers have been reached on 03/04/21
58,000,000 followers have been reached on 02/16/21
57,000,000 followers have been reached on 01/30/21
56,000,000 followers have been reached on 01/13/21
55,000,000 followers have been reached on 12/26/20
54,000,000 followers have been reached on 12/10/20
53,000,000 followers have been reached on 11/20/20
52,000,000 followers have been reached on 10/28/20
51,000,000 followers have been reached on 10/03/20
50,000,000 followers have been reached on 09/06/20
49,000,000 followers have been reached on 08/11/20
48,000,000 followers have been reached on 07/18/20
47,000,000 followers have been reached on 06/25/20
46,000,000 followers have been reached on 05/30/20
45,000,000 followers have been reached on 05/06/20
44,000,000 followers have been reached on 04/29/20
45,000,000 followers have been reached on 04/24/20
>> Daily breakdown

Ariana Grande is #4 among the most followed artists of all-time
>> Visit our Top 5,000 most followed artists ranking

Current streams count: 42,691,096,869
42,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 03/11/24
41,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 02/13/24
40,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 12/22/23
39,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 11/11/23
38,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 11/10/23
39,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 11/04/23
38,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 09/03/23
37,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 07/03/23
36,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 06/27/23
37,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 06/25/23
36,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 06/16/23
35,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 05/22/23
36,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 05/02/23
35,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 03/08/23
34,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 02/21/23
35,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 02/20/23
34,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 01/04/23
33,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 11/10/22
32,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 08/27/22
31,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 06/09/22
30,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 03/27/22
29,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 01/15/22
28,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 11/22/21
27,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 09/19/21
26,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 07/19/21
25,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 05/24/21
24,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 04/01/21
23,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 02/08/21
22,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 12/25/20
21,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 11/21/20
20,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 10/31/20
19,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 08/24/20
18,000,000,000 streams have been reached on 06/12/20
>> Daily breakdown

Ariana Grande is #11 among the most streamed artists of all-time
Popularity Rating: /100

>> Visit our Top 1,000 most streamed artists ranking
>> Visit our Top 20 highest rated artists ranking

Current monthly listeners: 89,110,955 (Trend: 9,402,718)
Global chart position: #3
The artist top 50 cities come from 26 distinct countries
>> Global impact breakdown

As usual, feel free to comment and / or ask a question!

Sources: IFPI, Spotify, YouTube, Discogs.

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