The Wanted hope to be ''as big as The Beatles''.

The British group - who recently performed a huge US tour and saw their single 'Glad You Came' reach number three in the US Billboard chart - are delighted with their Stateside success and hope to build on it to increase their popularity around the world.

Jay McGuiness told Closer magazine: ''We want to become a huge global act and be able to go to every country and sell out a gig. In all honesty, we want to be as big as The Beatles.

The success of the group - also comprising Max George, Tom Parker, Nathan Sykes and Siva Kaneswaran - In America comes at a time when fellow British act One Direction have also enjoyed Stateside success but Jay insists they don't view them as rivals and is pleased for them.

He added: ''The Wanted and One Direction are in two different arenas. One Direction are smashing the teen magazines and doing the Justin Bieber kind of thing.

''I'm glad they're doing so well because I've met them and think they're really nice. But we swear in interviews and don't have their cute little faces, so a lot of the teenage magazines tend to avoid us. Our music gets played in the clubs and on the radio, so we have very different audiences.''