30 years of holiday classic in numbers

When Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was released thirty years ago on October 29, 1994, her ascension to the throne of the Queen of Christmas began.

Three decades later, the 55-year-old pop superstar is everyone’s favorite holiday diva.

“It’s the gift that keeps on giving — to her fans and to Mariah,” Gary Trust, managing director of charts and operations at Billboard, told The Post.

“It’s at No. 1 on Billboard’s Greatest of All Time Holiday Songs charts. Of any Christmas issue ever published, this is the biggest. The graph reflects that.”

The first single from Carey’s album ‘Merry Christmas’ – which she co-wrote and produced with Walter Afanasieff – took the octave-jumping singer to historic heights.

“It helped make Mariah the first artist to hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 in four different decades: the ’90s, ’00s, ’10s and ’20s,” Trust said.

But the season standard had a long, slow climb to the top of the charts.

“Its history on the charts is as complicated as Christmas lights when you hang them on a tree,” Trust said. “Some of it is map editing. When the single was released in 1994, it was sent to radio, but you couldn’t buy it separately in stores. You could only buy it on the ‘Merry Christmas’ album.

“And at the time,” he explained, “the Hot 100 rules were such that you had to be a physically commercially available single to appear on the Hot 100.”

But the streaming age sent “All I Want for Christmas Is You” to the top of the charts in 2019 — where, like Santa Claus, it has returned every year since.

“There’s just something magical that makes it rise above all other Christmas carols during the season,” Trust said. “It’s not going away.”

Here we break down some of the key numbers behind the holiday classic.

1 — Carey makes at least 1 cent every time the song is played. And when the song is repeated around the world, those cents add up.

5 — Since the first number 1 hit in 2019, the holiday giant has been at the top of the charts for five years in a row. And this streak will likely continue into 2024.

14 — “All I Want for Christmas Is You” spent 14 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, tying it with Carey’s 2005 hit “We Belong Together.” But “One Sweet Day,” her 1995 blockbuster with Boyz II Men, still going strong – at least for now – with 16 weeks at the top of the charts.

19 — When “All I Want for Christmas Is You” first topped the charts in 2019, it became Carey’s 19th No. 1 song, putting her one number behind the Beatles’ record of 20.

25 — It took a quarter-century for the song to finally hit No. 1 in 2019, when it became Carey’s first chart-topper since 2008’s “Touch My Body.”

26 — The tinsel tune spreads Christmas cheer around the world and is number 1 in 26 countries.

61 – There was a 61-year gap between “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which hit No. 1 in 2019, and the previous Christmas chart hit, 1958’s “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late).”

93 — Fourteen weeks at No. 1 for “All I Want for Christmas Is You” extended Carey’s record to 93 for the highest ranking on the Billboard Hot 100.

23,700,000 — At Christmas 2023, the song blew up Spotify with 23.7 million streams. But Taylor Swift broke Carey’s single-day record with “Fortnight” in April with 25.2 million streams.

60,000,000 – From streaming alone, Carey has made more than $60 million from the song, which doesn’t even include more money from album sales, downloads, licensing and other types of royalties.

1,832,654,277 — As we enter the 31st holiday season, the song is approaching 2 billion streams on Spotify.