Adele conquers the world with a billion plays

From Kazakhstan to Chile, Adele's Rolling in the Deep is played one billion times.

Following Adele's double win at the Ivors for the PRS for Music Most Performed Work and Songwriter of the Year, the collecting society which represents 90,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers has published records showing how far 'Rolling in the Deep' has reached around the globe.

Adele has become a UK icon for her belting vocals, singular fashion and down-to- earth cockney attitude but her international success demonstrates the dominance of her appeal above and beyond what most industry experts could have ever predicted.

Her music is now tracked in 170 countries, the most regions PRS for Music has ever worked in, including Kazakhstan and Chile and the album '21' topped the charts in more than 26 countries. Across Europe Adele sold hugely more digital singles in the first half of 2011 (3.22m) than any other artist, ahead of Rihanna (2.66m), Bruno Mars (2.64m) and Lady Gaga (2.36m) and she was the most successful international act in the German album charts in 2011.

The album '21' has broken records all around the world; 33 weeks at No.1 in the Irish Albums Chart, the longest in the chart's history, 32 weeks at No.1 on the Australian ARIA Top 50 Albums Chart and in Canada, '21' spent 28 weeks at number one, and sold one million copies. It has sold nine million copies so far in the U.S. and is the fourth best-selling album of the past 10 years in the United States (5.82 in 2011 alone compare to second place holder, Michael Bublé's Christmas, which sold 2.5 million copies.)