It didn't take long for YouTube to claim a new historical nick on its music service. Google as the parent company says that YouTube Premium and Music already has 50 million subscribers.
This figure is a combination of the two services achieved within a year and a half after reaching 20 million.
YouTube Music head Lyor Cohen said his music subscription service is growing fastest and impressive, especially in countries like Brazil, India, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
The figure achieved by YouTube is indeed still much smaller when compared to Spotify. Where Spotify claims to have had 165 million premium subscribers as of June 2021.
Then since June 2019 Apple has had 60 million subscribers, but so far Apple has not divulged the number of its Apple Music subscribers. While Amazon with its music service in January 2020 said it had 55 million subscribers.
These figures by YouTube show that YouTube is quickly becoming a major force in the music streaming service. YouTube's calculated figure includes users who are on a free trial so the number of paying subscribers is likely to be lower.
Samsung with its new phone, for example, offers users two to four months to access the YouTube Premium service for free.
This data suggests competition in the music streaming world is heating up where YouTube and Amazon Music could pose a threat to incumbents like Spotify and Apple. But it could take a long time before YouTube is big enough to worry competitors.
