I don’t want a lot for Christmas. There is just one thing I need.
I (ostensibly) don’t care about the presents underneath the Christmas tree. Yet I will always ask for the receipt.
Make my wish come true. All I want for Christmas is the amount Mariah Carey makes every year for her song, All I Want for Christmas is You.
An undisputed Christmas classic, Billboard have reported that in 2022, the song generated 2.181 million song consumption units in the United States alone.
To put that into context, 51,000 were from track downloads, 229.7 million were from on- demand audio streams, 123.5 million were from video on- demand streams and 29.1 million were from programmed streams.
In total, this generated $1.8 million (AUD $2.64 million) in the United States for Carey and her label, Sony Music. While this sounds like an incredible amount, it gets better.
The United States only accounted for 59.2 percent of download sales, and 30.6 percent of on- demand streaming. Given the song is a household staple at Christmas, Billboard estimates that in 2022, the song brought in more than $5.3 million (AUD $7.76 million) globally. While its publishing royalties generated $3.2million (AUD $4.68 million) globally.
This means that AUD $12.44 million goes into Ms Carey’s designer purse every year. Furthermore, given that the song came out 29 years ago, Ms Carey and her label have made upwards of a total of AUD $360.76 million from the one song!
It’s enough money to make your head spin. Which mine is currently given the calculations I just made.
I guess I will just need to keep going with my own Christmas single. The working title so far is Sorry, I Burnt the Ham and the Potatoes. The lyrics are currently subpar, but I’ll keep working on it.
In the meantime, please listen to the song again for the ten millionth time below.
