Harry Styles' debut single could miss out on the top spot in the Official Charts after a Spotify glitch prevented users from listening to the track.
Harry Styles
The former One Direction hunk released his debut solo single 'Sign of the Times' on Friday (07.04.17), and despite climbing to the top of the UK charts in terms of downloads and sales, figures from the streaming service are set to make the track drop below Ed Sheeran's 'Shape of You' after a glitch on the service's search function left fans unable to find the song.
A source told The Sun newspaper: "This is a nightmare start for Harry's solo career and his record label won't be happy.
"The Spotify malfunction meant many of his fans simply couldn't find his song to listen to online when they searched for it.
"The potential ramifications are big and it's likely he has missed out on hundreds of thousands of streams as a result. That could really affect his chart position come Friday (14.04.17).
"He is Number One at the moment but that's only because his streaming stats haven't been included yet, and they have more weight.
"Harry's launch is one of the industry's biggest this year and everyone expected him to hit the ground running by topping the charts."
According to the publication, as of Sunday (09.04.17), 'Sign of the Times' had sold 23,816 copies compared to 6,969 for 'Shape of You', which is the current number one.
However, when it came to streams, Ed completely dwarfed the 23-year-old singer with 548,052 streams to Harry's 301,925.
Spotify rectified the issue on Saturday (09.04.17) and the song is now available on the platform, however the loss of streams on the day of release is believed to have heavily impacted Harry's chances of scoring a number one single.
Tagged in Ed Sheeran Harry Styles