IFPI's Top 20 best selling artists in 2025

[Teletubby 156,568]

This marks the sixth time Taylor Swift has won the award, and her fourth consecutive year at the top of the IFPI Global Artist Chart. Swift has now won the award as many times as all other artists combined over the past ten years, which reflects both her creative consistency and the long-term global strategies supporting her releases.

Top 20 IFPI Global Artist Chart 2025  - This chart includes consumption of an artist’s entire catalogue across all formats, including physical album sales, downloads and streaming across both free and paid platforms, translated into chart units by IFPI according to a rigorous methodology based on the relative economics of each format in each region globally.

 

1. Taylor Swift
2. Stray Kids
3. Drake
4. The Weeknd
5. Bad Bunny
6. Kendrick Lamar
7. Morgan Wallen
8. Sabrina Carpenter
9. Billie Eilish
10. Lady Gaga
11. Ariana Grande
12. Tyler, The Creator
13. Mrs. GREEN APPLE
14. SEVENTEEN
15. Eminem
16. Linkin Park
17. Zach Bryan
18. Ed Sheeran
19. SZA
20. Justin Bieber

Edited 7 hours ago by Teletubby

[Horny Chicken 9,951]

We should bet money on who is #1. 

[Teletubby 156,568]

1 minute ago, Horny Chicken said:

We should bet money on who is #1. 

1. Rita Ora

[RAMROD 113,142]

Come on, we already knew 1 will be either mis Tay tay or K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack  

[djfreemymind 1,265]

whooo are these kids and why have they Strayed?!?

[elsamars 6,274]

Taylor's global dominance 

Truly the biggest artist ever 

[RAMROD 113,142]

8 minutes ago, djfreemymind said:

whooo are these kids and why have they Strayed?!?

K-Pop band 

[weed 76,465]

I love Taylor's success I just wish the music was better this time  give us reputation 2.0 already

[voltron92 2,544]

45 minutes ago, Teletubby said:

This marks the sixth time Taylor Swift has won the award, and her fourth consecutive year at the top of the IFPI Global Artist Chart. Swift has now won the award as many times as all other artists combined over the past ten years, which reflects both her creative consistency and the long-term global strategies supporting her releases.

Top 20 IFPI Global Artist Chart 2025  - This chart includes consumption of an artist’s entire catalogue across all formats, including physical album sales, downloads and streaming across both free and paid platforms, translated into chart units by IFPI according to a rigorous methodology based on the relative economics of each format in each region globally.

 

1. Taylor Swift
2. Stray Kids
3. Drake
4. The Weeknd
5. Bad Bunny
6. Kendrick Lamar
7. Morgan Wallen
8. Sabrina Carpenter
9. Billie Eilish
10. Lady Gaga
11. Ariana Grande
12. Tyler, The Creator
13. Mrs. GREEN APPLE
14. SEVENTEEN
15. Eminem
16. Linkin Park
17. Zach Bryan
18. Ed Sheeran
19. SZA
20. Justin Bieber

This marks the sixth time Taylor Swift has won the award, and her fourth consecutive year at the top of the IFPI Global Artist Chart. Swift has now won the award as many times as all other artists combined over the past ten years

 did AI write this?

[Mars 2,478]

Raw Chicken 

[gagzus 17,824]

This makes no sense since DWAS was the biggest song of 2025 in streams, Mayhem was arguably the most successful album released and had ALL year to get sales and streams. Plus Gaga had viral moments in multiple ways. AND was the biggest touring artist of the year.

I’m presuming this is a predominately US based thing? 

[RAMROD 113,142]

6 minutes ago, gagzus said:

This makes no sense since DWAS was the biggest song of 2025 in streams, Mayhem was arguably the most successful album released and had ALL year to get sales and streams. Plus Gaga had viral moments in multiple ways. AND was the biggest touring artist of the year.

I’m presuming this is a predominately US based thing? 

IFPI stands for International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, so no, this is not US based thing. Taylor Swift have consistently #1 last year. And her sales numbers are gigantic, dwarfing anyone on that Top 10.

Based on early 2026 reports covering the 2025 calendar year, Taylor Swift's album, The Life of a Showgirl (released in October 2025) was the best-selling album of the year with 5.6 million total units, and with 3.985 million pure sales (physical and digital).

Meanwhile Gaga, sold over 4.3 million units sold globally. Total global pure sales for MAYHEM were 575,000 copies by early 2026, according to ChartMasters.  

And FYI, pure sales (the purchase of physical CDs, vinyl, or digital downloads) are often much smaller than total album sales (album-equivalent units) because the industry has shifted to a model where thousands of song streams are counted as equivalent to one album sale. While pure sales represent a 1:1 transaction, "total sales" often include streaming data, which allows for a much higher, aggregated total.