YouTube announced that it has passed 50 million subscribers for its paid services YouTube Premium and YouTube Music. That includes customers on free trials. Citing data from Midia, the company said it was also the fastest growing music streaming service on the market.
The company did not give a further breakdown of the numbers. The subscription services were started around six years ago, and Google last reported over 20 million subscribers in early 2020.
Midia estimates that Google's services had an 8 percent share of the music streaming market in Q1 2021. According to the market researcher, Google grew music subscriber numbers by 60 percent in 2020, ahead of Tencent with 40 percent growth, Amazon up 27 percent and Apple growing just 12 percent.
The faster growth follows Google phasing out its own Play Music app in favour of promoting YouTube Music. It's also been expanding distribution of the YouTube app to smart TVs and Android set-top boxes, in order to develop the connected TV market more and position YouTube alongside other streaming services.
YouTube said in June that it had paid out around USD 4 billion to the music industry in the previous 12 months. Around 30 percent of that came from user-generated content. The company said it added more paid subscribers in Q1 2021 than any previous quarter.
