In one year, the Google subsidiary has recruited 30 million additional members to its Music and Premium services.
Google’s free video platform is becoming a major player in the paid world. On Wednesday, YouTube announced that it had exceeded 80 million subscribers to its paid Music and Premium offers in September, including users in the free trial period. A spectacular leap: this represents an explosive growth of 60% in one year. “This is an increase of 30 million members from the 50 million announced last year.“, rejoiced Lyor Cohen, the director of the YouTube Music service, in a press release.
On the paying segment, the Google subsidiary is still very far from equaling Spotify, which has totaled 195 million subscribers since the end of September. But it shows stronger growth than the current leader in music streaming. Between September 2021 and September 2022, Spotify recruited some 23 million subscribers. In other words, YouTube has attracted 7 million more with its Music and Premium applications. To explain this growth, YouTube offers several explanations. The first is the improvement of certain features, particularly on Premium, such as “afterparties”, live and exclusive broadcasts of artists’ shows, during which subscribers can dialogue in real time, via a chat, with musicians and other members.
The Premium package (from 11.99 euros) is the equivalent of YouTube, free of any advertising. And it also includes YouTube Music, a music streaming service, which is marketed alone at 9.99 euros. It provides ad-free access to over 100 million songs, videos, an extensive catalog of live performances, remixes and unreleased tracks.
The second reason for Youtube’s success in paid streaming is linked to “successful global partnerships», Comments Lyor Cohen. The American giant has entered into several distribution agreements with companies such as Samsung, operators such as SoftBank in Japan, Vodafone in Europe, LG U+ in Korea, or even services, for example, Google One. “These partners have played an essential role in reaching this milestone of 80 million subscribers“, indicates the leader.
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$6 billion
In September, the Google subsidiary made no secret of its ambition to become the leading source of income in the music sector by 2025. For the moment, Spotify occupies this place. In 2021, the Swedish giant paid music rights holders $7 billion. YouTube, for its part, paid them a total of 6 billion dollars between July 2021 and June 2022. The video platform with two billion monthly users, relies on its “double revenue engine, subscriptions and advertisementsto accelerate further. And it can count on a lever that Spotify does not have: the monetization of videos posted by its users and very often with sound. This content alone already accounts for 30% of the $6 billion paid to the music industry.