The YouTube subscriber battle between Bollywood label and production company T-Series and Felix ‘PewDiePie’ Kjellberg has been ubiquitous on the internet, but how much did the influence of Bollywood help T-Series?
PewDiePie and the Indian company have been locked in an engrossing subscriber battle for the past few months, with incredible campaigns launched to support both channels.
PewDiePie in particular saw unprecedented support for a YouTube creator, including help from fellow YouTuber Jimmy ‘MrBeast’ Donaldson at the Superbowl, and bizarre support from adult site PornHub.
However, on March 26, T-Series took the lead once again, and their lead appears to be growing all the time. According to social media monitoring site SocialBlade, at the time of writing, PewDiePie sits at 91,818,064, whilst the Bollywood label 91,921,653 – over 100,000 ahead of the Swede.
T-Series’ overtake has come at the end of a few weeks of campaigning on their behalf. On March 6, the company’s managing director, Bhushan Kumar, posted videos on Twitter and Facebook, asking people to subscribe.
This was followed by a number of famous Bollywood names joining the campaign; including Rajkummar Rao, who has over half a million Twitter followers, and John Abraham, who has over two and a half million. Both men tweeted their support for T-Series and encouraged their followers to subscribe, echoing Kumar’s message to “make India win”.
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It’s so exciting to know that @Tseries is on the brink of becoming the biggest YouTube channel in the world! Good luck @itsBhushanKumar Let’s all subscribe to ensure and let’s make India win. #BharatWinsYouTube
— Rajkummar Rao (@RajkummarRao) March 11, 2019
Our very own Indian Youtube channel, Tseries is on the verge of becoming the World’s number one YouTube channel. Let’s put all our hearts into winning this!
All we have to do is subscribe to Tseries on YouTube and make India win!! @TSeries @itsBhushanKumar #BharatWinsYoutube pic.twitter.com/HOUsZTXRQV
— John Abraham (@TheJohnAbraham) March 11, 2019
Will PewDiePie beat T-Series to 100 million YouTube subscribers?
As T-Series’ subscriber lead increases and shows no signs of slowing down, remember you can keep up to date with live subscribers counts here.
As much of the USA and western Europe pushes for PewDiePie, it appears that Bollywood’s influence has made the ultimate difference. India, which is the second most populous nation in the world with over 1.3 billion inhabitants, has come together and got behind T-Series, and looks to have proved too much for the Swedish YouTuber to handle, as they are on their way to hitting the 100 million mark.