Mariah Carey Continues to Earn Millions for ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’

December 21, 2022

*Mariah Carey continues to earn millions from her timeless holiday song “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”

Billboard reported on Dec. 19 that the track holds the No. 1 spot on both the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts. Carey released her modernized version of the holiday classic in 1994. Last year, the song received the Recording Industry Association of America Diamond Award, making it the first holiday song to receive the award.

“The continued love for my song never ceases to amaze me and fill my heart with a multitude of emotions,” the ‘Queen of Christmas’ previously said in a press release. “It blows my mind that ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ has endured different eras of the music industry. The RIAA DIAMOND award?! Wowww! I’m so fortunate to have the greatest fans on Earth, my Lambily, who continue to support my legacy. I love you.”

Carey posed with her Diamond Award trophy in a post shared on social media, which she captioned: “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend ????❤️.” Check out the post below.

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A post shared by Mariah Carey (@mariahcarey)

Meanwhile, Mariah reportedly bags around $3 million per year from the track. A new Billboard report breaks down just how much the songstress continues to earn from the song.

Per Billboard, in 2021…

…the song, co-written by Carey and Walter Afanasieff, clocked 200 million on-demand audio streams, 48,000 downloads, 52.5 million video streams, and 24 million programmed streams in the US. That all generated $1.36 million for Carey and her label, Sony Music. But it doesn’t stop there.

Publishing rights to the song brought in another $378,000. Global streams brought the total spins to 823 million with 94,000 total downloads. Carey and Afanasieff’s master recording earned an estimated $4.5 million in 2021, plus $1.66 million in publishing royalties, making a grand total of $6.16 million in total revenue. Billboard surmised that Carey’s share of the masters to be $1.55 million with Sony getting $2.95 million (further proof that labels are even making far more money than Mariah freakin’ Carey.) Her publishing shares after admin fees, publishing deal and Afanasieff’s 50/50 cut (assuming that’s their share of the writing), comes out to around $415,000.

And there you have it!