The Korea Herald

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Psy's new video tops 100 mln hits on YouTube

By 윤민식

Published : April 17, 2013 - 10:07

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South Korean rapper Psy's new video, "Gentleman," recorded more than 100 million hits on YouTube Wednesday, less than five days after its release.

The clip, released at 9 p.m. Saturday, surpassed 100 million around 5 a.m. on Wednesday.

It marks far faster growth in the number of YouTube hits than his previous mega-hit video, "Gangnam Style."

"Style" topped 100 million views in 51 days after it was posted. It remains the most-viewed YouTube video with more than more than 1.5 billion hits.

Media attention is now on whether the video of "Gentleman" has set a new YouTube record for reaching the 100 million milestone the fastest.

YG Entertainment, Psy's local management agency, says the video is believed to have broken the record, but no official figures are available.

Singer Susan Boyle who rose to fame on a British talent show is known as the current record-holder, according to YG officials.

"'Gentleman' did break the YouTube record for the most views in a single day on the day of its release, but we have not officially counted regarding which video broke the 100 million mark in the shortest period," said an official at Google Korea that provides the Youtube service, requesting not to be named.

According to YouTube data released Tuesday, the United States was in first place of countries whose people viewed the 'Gentleman'

video the most on the first day of its release with 3.79 million hits, followed by South Korea (3.57 million), Brazil (1.41 million), Mexico (1 million) and Canada (969,000).

The five other countries in the top 10 were France, Britain, Taiwan, Vietnam and Malaysia.

As the video makes a big splash online, the single's ranking on iTunes charts rose sharply after it went on sale online in 119 nations on Friday.

It topped iTunes charts in 42 countries, including Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, Egypt, Greece, Mexico, Sweden, Indonesia and Taiwan as of early Wednesday.

The video rose to second place in such countries as Austria, Canada, Chile and Turkey, and third in India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands and New Zealand.

The video came in 7th in Britain and 13th in the U.S., countries that lead the global pop music market. (Yonhap News)