Question 1: Which pop star has the most followers across social media platforms?

Answer: Depends on how you count.

Ariana Grande has more social media followers on these platforms:

• Instagram (380M vs. Taylor's 273M)
• Spotify total followers (94M vs Taylor's 89M)
• TikTok (33M vs. Taylor's 21.8 M)

Taylor Swift has more followers on these platforms:

• Spotify monthly listeners (100M to Ari's 64M)
• YouTube (54M to Ari's 53M)
• Facebook (79M to Ari's 42M)

Important caveat: I didn't compare their Twitter numbers, because Ariana doesn't have a Twitter account (as of Oct 2023). Taylor Swift has 94.6M followers currently on her Twitter account.

If you sum Ariana Grande's followers across all platforms (excluding Twitter because she doesn't have one), she has 667M followers.

If you sum Taylor Swift's followers across all platforms (excluding Twitter), she has 618M followers.

Question 2: Which pop star has the most Top Billboard 100 hits?

Answer: Taylor Swift.

• Taylor Swift has more Top Billboard 100 hits (212 compared to Ariana's 73.)
• Taylor also beats Ariana Grande for more number 1 hits - Taylor has 9 #1 hits and Ariana has 7.
• Taylor has more than double the number of top 10 hits - Taylor has 42 top 10 hits and Ariana has 20.

Question 3: Which pop star has the most Spotify streams?

Answer: Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift has both more total Spotify streams AND more daily Spotify streams.

In terms of total Spotify streams: Taylor Swift has 19 billion streams more than Ariana Grande, or 1.46x as many streams.

In terms of daily Spotify streams: Taylor Swift has 64 million more streams than Ariana, or 5x as many streams.

Taylor Swift is clearly dominating in streams compared to Ariana Grande, given the significant difference.

Final Thoughts

As a loyal Arihead, I am disappointed in these results, but the people have spoken. Taylor Swift's popularity in everyday life has exploded during her Eras tour and is likely to continue to rise now that her Eras tour movie is in theaters. I compared Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift because they are pop stars around the same age who have been in the music business for a long time and appeal to similar demographics (tween and teen girls.)

Ariana Grande has stepped away from music for now to pursue the beauty industry (R.E.M. Beauty), to guest-star in "The Voice," and to star in the "Wicked" musical movie. She is still a musical powerhouse to be reckoned with, but she may be losing ground to Taylor Swift.

Sources:

• Billboard Chart History, Ariana Grande
• Billboard Chart History, Taylor Swift
• Spotify Streaming Numbers from Kworb.net
• Social media numbers taken from each pop star's social media account in Oct 2023