Boomplay streams now count towards Billboard Charts

As part of its dedication to helping the African music industry unlock its full potential, music streaming platform Boomplay's data will now be added to the data that informs the prestigious Billboard Hot 100, Billboard 200, Artist 100 and Billboard Global 200 charts, as well as all other Billboard U.S. and global charts that include streaming data.

This will be effective with data for the tracking week of October 15 through October 21 (Billboard charts dated October 30).

With millions of African songs being streamed on the platform globally, the inclusion of Boomplay's stream data in the iconic charts provides African and international artistes and music on the platform the opportunity for more exposure on the global stage.

Within MRC Data’s Music Connect platform, Boomplay streams will be included in the ‘Others’ data bucket under Audio On-Demand with data visible on October 12, 2021 for streams beginning on October 8, 2021.

According to Billboard, ''MRC Data's foundation is built on providing the music industry and our clients with the most complete view of music consumption. We are excited to announce additional data being captured from Boomplay.’’

Boomplay's Director of Content & Strategy, Phil Choi described Boomplay's addition to the charts as " a significant step in ensuring African artistes on the platform are fairly and equally represented where it matters and that they have access to similar opportunities available to their international counterparts. While this might have seemed far-fetched in the past, we now have one foot in the door already following our partnership with Billboard Charts."

Boomplay’s streaming data added to the Billboard charts represent streams from its subscription tier and logged-in streams from its ad-supported tier, with streams from each tier weighted appropriately.