YouTube Music and Premium Hits 100 Million Subscribers

YouTube commemorates Music and Premium striking 100 million customers.

On Thursday, February 1, YouTube reached a considerable turning point for its paid music and video tiers with 100 million YouTube Music and Premium customers worldwide in between the 2, consisting of those who were on a complimentary trial– making the real paid customer count rather less.

That’s approximately 20 million more members in a little over a year, and double the figure reported in September 2021, although it’s uncertain the number of those are utilizing YouTube Music, considering that a Premium membership likewise consists of access to that service. Whichever method you look at it, YouTube has actually effectively grown its figures in spite of that $2 a month boost for Premium that dropped last summertime.

Whether the figures consist of YouTube Music by itself is unimportant; the service still has actually considerably less paid users than music streaming market leader Spotify, which boasted 226 million Premium customers since October 30. It stays to be seen what the brand-new numbers will appear like when the business exposes its most current incomes report next week.

Apple stopped exposing its Apple Music customer count given that 2019, when the last firm number offered was 60 million. YouTube does not care what Apple or Spotify may be doing– according to Lyor Cohen, Global Head of Music at YouTube, their Premium service is “in its own lane.”

“The music market is at a crucial point,” states Cohen. “Together, we can harness technological development to drive unmatched worth for artists and fans, constructing on our momentum that added to $6 billion to the music market in 12 months. From leveraging AI to improve innovative creativity, to flawlessly bridging short-form and long-form material for optimum artist direct exposure, we can create a future together where the music market prospers.”

YouTube Premium is the business’s ad-free tier, at $10.99 each month. For $13.99 a month, you likewise get Music Premium, the business’s ad-free music streaming service, while likewise getting an ad-free YouTube video experience, higher-quality streaming, background play, and downloads to listen or see material while offline.

Like SNL’s David S. PumpkinsYouTube Premium is its “own thing.” It can be challenging to compare the offering to other paid streaming services like Apple Music or Spotify Premium.

As far as video services go, YouTube’s numbers are still behind those of Netflix (260.8 million customers)– although it may be able to much better complete with Disney+, which reached 150 million paid customers last year. Even then, it’s difficult to hold contrasts to other video material streaming services; YouTube deserted the initial material gig in 2022.