’Despacito’ video beats ’See You Again’ as first to three billion YouTube views

Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s sultry ’Despacito’ has beaten Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s Furious 7 track ’See You Again’ in a narrow race to become the first video to hit 3 billion views on YouTube.

It took the Spanish language video (without Justin Bieber’s additional English verses) just over six months to reach the milestone, after going online on January 12.

The Bieber version has had 464 million views.

YouTube officially conformed the 3 billion milestone on Saturday morning Australian time. 

By the end of July, ’Despacito’ reached over 4.6 billion plays across all streaming platforms including Spotify, Pandora and SoundCloud combined.

’Despacito’ also has the most Likes on YouTube, the company added. 

In the run-up, ’Despacito’ was at2.916 billion YouTube views and had been adding between 14 and 19 million new views daily.

Fonsi took to Instagram with a video, on which he excitedly captioned, "What an honor.. most viewed video in history and first video to reach 3 billion views... y EN ESPAÑOL!! [and IN SPANISH!]

"Thank you to everybody involved @daddyyankee@zuleykarivera @elasticpeople

“Thank you, the fans for celebrating this song with us y gracias Puerto Rico por ser el escenario más hermoso del mundo [and thank you Puerto Rico for being the most beautiful setting in the world]. Que viva la música latina."

’See You Again’ had been in the lead with 2.979 billion plays but had only been adding three million new views per day.

Last month it overtook Psy’s ’Gangnam Style’ as Most Watched Video on YouTube. 

This week the Bieber-featuring ’Despacito’ version held its 12^th week on the ARIA Singles Chart. 

It also notched up its 12^th week at #1 in the US and 10^th week at #1 in the UK.