YouTube Music downloaded more than 15M times in India: Google

YouTube Music, which was launched in mid-March this year, has been downloaded more than 15 million times in India, said Google as a part of its earnings call announced on Monday.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai also commented that India is YouTube’s fastest growing market. YouTube Music is made available in 43 other countries, since the start of 2018.

At present, YouTube’s music streaming platform has official songs, albums, thousands of playlists, and artists, and YouTube’s tremendous catalogue of remixes, live performances, covers, and music videos.

Earlier, YouTube did not allow users to keep a music video playing while engaging with other apps, which YouTube Music plans to counter.

Also read: YouTube Music app is finally here: background playback, smart search, and more

YouTube Music app which is ad-supported can be accessed for free, while the ad-free version -YouTube Music premium is available for a monthly subscription at Rs 99 per month. 

YouTube Music’s premium service comes with an option for offline downloads. Apart from the vast library of music, the app packs in a feature called ‘smart search’ for audiophiles. Through this capability, users can also search a song by its lyrics on YouTube Music. 

In the earnings call, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said,

“We’ve also expanded the content offering, availability, and the functionality on some of our newer YouTube experiences”. Hence, in the coming months, users can expect more improvements.

The music streaming app faces strong competition in India from other music streaming platforms like Spotify, Gaana, Reliance’s Jio Saavn, Wynk, amongst others.

Global music streaming app Spotify was launched in India on February 26 this year. The Swedish music streaming app last month claimed that it has two million registered users. Homegrown app Gaana also announced last month that it has a total of 100 million users, at present. Telecom operator Airtel has also forayed in the space with its music streaming service, Wynk.

Also read: YouTube Music beats Spotify with 3 million downloads in just one week

Spotify clocks two million users in India despite troubles with music labels