YouTube, the popular video-sharing platform, achieved a significant milestone on Thursday as its paid music and video subscription services crossed the 100 million subscriber mark worldwide. It is important to note that this figure includes trial subscriptions, so the actual number of paid subscribers is slightly lower.
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The subscription tiers offered by the company have been a major source of revenue for Google’s subscription services, contributing to a remarkable $15 billion in revenue in 2023, which includes YouTube TV and Google One. It has been nearly a decade since the company introduced its paid, ad-free subscription service. Over time, the company decided to split YouTube Red into two separate offerings: YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium.
The company’s Music streaming music service has an ad-free Premium tier priced at $10.99 per month. On the other hand, the Premium video service, priced at $13.99 per month, includes the benefits of Music Premium while also eliminating ads from the service, providing higher-quality streaming, and enabling background play and downloads.
The total subscriber count does not differentiate between the two tiers, making it challenging to determine the exact number of users utilizing the company’s Music streaming service compared to other music platforms like Apple Music and Spotify, as well as how many are opting for the additional features of YouTube Premium.
While firm’s combined subscriber count of 100 million is still behind industry giants Netflix and Spotify, who boast 260.8 million and 226 million paid subscribers respectively, it is more comparable to Disney Plus, which surpassed 150 million paid subscribers last year. However, it is important to note that the Premium video service should not be considered a direct competitor to other premium streaming services, given its diverse offerings, including user-generated videos, live TV, streaming music, and on-demand video.
It is worth mentioning that YouTube has shifted its focus away from the streaming arms race and has ceased producing the most original content since early 2022. As a result, advertising remains the primary source of revenue for the platform, rather than subscriptions. Nevertheless, surpassing 100 million subscribers is a significant achievement, and the steady growth of the Premium video service and Music streaming indicates that they will continue to play an important role in shaping the company’s future.
