Camila Cabello's Havana revealed as the world's biggest song of the past year
Havana by Camila Cabello ft. Young Thug has been named as the best-selling digital single globally of 2018.
Topping the IFPI’s list of the world’s biggest songs in 2018, Havana is the lead track from Camila’s eponymous debut solo album and takes influence from her Cuban heritage.
The original single and later remix version with Daddy Yankee reached Number 1 in 95 countries, including the UK where it stayed at the top for five weeks in 2017. It was the 17th biggest song of 2018 in the UK.
In June 2018, Havana became the most-streamed song ever by a female artist on Spotify with 888 million streams and has now clocked up 2.6 billion streams worldwide across all providers. Check out Camila Cabello's full Official Charts history here.
MORE: The Official Top 40 biggest songs of 2018
Taking second place globally is God’s Plan by Drake, which was also the UK’s second biggest single of the year after One Kiss by Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa. The lead track from Scorpion broke multiple global streaming records on release, including first-day records on both Spotify and Apple Music. It managed 15.3 million combined sales across the planet in 2018.
Ed Sheeran flies the flag for the UK in the Top 5 with Shape Of You (3) and Perfect (4) which were two more of the UK’s biggest singles. Both reached Number 1 in 2017 in the UK, and Perfect was even Christmas Number 1 in the same year. Check out Ed Sheeran's complete Official Chart history.
Also representing the UK is Coldplay's collaboration with The Chainsmokers, Something Just Like This (8) and BRITs nominee Anne Marie's huge collab Friends with DJ Marshmello (9) also appear on the Top 10.
Top 10 global digital singles of 2018
| Rank | Artist and song title | Global total converted track equivalent (m) |
| 1 | Camila Cabello (feat. Young Thug) - Havana | 19.0 |
| 2 | Drake - God's Plan | 15.3 |
| 3 | Ed Sheeran - Shape Of You | 14.9 |
| 4 | Ed Sheeran - Perfect | 13.5 |
| 5 | Maroon 5 (feat. Cardi B) - Girls Like You | 11.9 |
| 6 | Luis Fonsi (feat. Daddy Yankee) - Despacito | 11.8 |
| 7 | Tia Ray - Be Apart | 10.9 |
| 8 | The Chainsmokers & Coldplay - Something Just Like This | 10.0 |
| 9 | Marshmello & Anne-Marie - FRIENDS | 9.6 |
| 10 | Post Malone (feat. Ty Dolla $ign) - Psycho | 9.2 |
Source: IFPI
The IFPI Global Digital Singles Chart includes sales of digitally downloaded singles and on-demand video and audio streams across the calendar year; using permanent download equivalent units to combine measurements of digital sales and streams.
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19 million? Yeah right! So they say now singles are sold in a year like the best selling singles of all time? No way these numbers are accurate. The track equivalent that they decided to do does not mirror the real impact making all year end TOP 10 singles released on these past couple of years all land on the TOP 100 best selling singles of all time, some are even TOP 10 and TOP 5 now.
Don't tell me that because of streaming the impact of these singles is bigger than songs like "I Will Always Love You" from Whitney Houston or "Everything I Do" from Bryan Adams or "We Are The World" or "Macarena" or Beatles "I Want To Hold Your Hand".
According to IFPI, because of Streaming now 6 of the TOP 10 best selling songs in the world were released in the past 4 years and almost 50 of the Best Selling Songs Ever were released in the past 5 years. Before there were not even more than 2 or 3 songs from each decade in the TOP 10 and songs were very well distributed (only sales were counted). Streaming is important but 150 listenings are not the same as 1 single sold as they say. My father has that Beatles record and he still listens to it now and then 50 years later. Probably had listen to it more than 15.000 times in 50 years. If those were streaming the single he bought would be equivalent to 1.500 singles sold. This is unrealistic and bringing these decade acts and songs to beat records without having the credit. Almost all those songs upthere, according to IFPI sold more than Madonna's "Like a Prayer" or "Vogue" and Michael Jackson "Thriller" or "Billie Jean". The thing is 90% (or more) of those sales are really streams equivalent so people aren't keeping the songs to listen later again and also artist aren't really selling records (or making much money from the songs). Fake sales, fake record breakings and fake money (well, no money).