YouTube has reached a new milestone with its Music and Premium offerings. Paid services have more than 100 million users as of January, including those with free trials. This represents an increase of 20 million members in just over a year, and the figure has doubled since September 2021. YouTube has successfully increased the numbers despite the $2 per month increase for Premium that went into effect last summer.
YouTube Music has passed an important threshold
It’s unclear how many people actually use YouTube Music. No matter how you slice it, the music streaming service has significantly fewer paying users than Spotify, which had 220 million Premium members as of September 30. Spotify will announce its latest membership numbers in its earnings report next week. Apple no longer discloses the number of Apple Music subscribers. The last number of companies the company provided for the service was 60 million subscribers in 2019.
Regardless, the comparison between YouTube’s paid service and Apple Music and Spotify Premium is not very similar. YouTube Premium is its own thing, with its own advantages. Once you get Premium, it can be difficult to switch back to the crazier, ad-filled free version of the service. The download option and background playback feature are very useful to view videos offline without having to resort to workarounds. YouTube Music is an extra benefit beyond that for many members.