One Direction have been crowned the top recording artists of 2013, beating off competition from Eminem, Justin Timberlake and Bruno Mars.
The boyband, who have a legion of fans around the world, were voted the Global Recording Artist of 2013 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which represents the recording industry worldwide.
Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne beat rapper Eminem and pop-star Justin Timberlake, who both finished 2nd and 3rd respectively.
This was the first year the IFPI also including figures from streaming services such as Spotify, which boosts 24 million users, as well as CD sales and downloads.
Speaking about the music streaming site’s inclusion IFPI communications manager Alex Jacob said: “Streaming has become so much more mainstream within the music industry worldwide over the last couple of years we thought it was time we integrated the streams-on services such as Deezer and Spotify and YouTube as well.”
The release of Midnight Memories secured the top spot for One D as it is their 3rd studio album to debut at No.1 on the Billboard 200 album chart, making them the first group in history to achieve a debuting No.1 with their first three albums.
Below are the IFPI top 10 global recording artists 2013:
1 – One Direction
2 – Eminem
3 – Justin Timberlake
4 – Bruno Mars
5 – Katy Perry
6 – Pink
7 – Macklemore and Ryan Lewis
8 – Rihanna
9 – Michael Buble
10 – Daft Punk
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