With the Indian music streaming segment clocking impressive growth in user numbers, both paid and unpaid, Google-owned media streaming platform YouTube this week announced the launch of its music streaming services for the Indian market.
YouTube Music’s India entry comes just days after the launch of the world’s largest music streaming platform Spotify in the country, increasing competition in an already crowded space between a host of domestic and international platforms. YouTube and Spotify will have to contend with platforms like Google Music, Jio-Saavn, Amazon and Gaana.
YouTube music app will come in free mode, which will be ad-supported, and a premium paid version. YouTube Music Premium will cost users `99 per month and allow users to play songs and videos in the background.
YouTube has launched both free and paid versions of its music platforms offering all genres of Indian and western music numbers.
“We are seeing lot of engagement across diverse set of content in India and India is exporting tremendous amount of music culture. We have seen explosive amount of growth in terms of consumption in India over last two years and I think it will be missed opportunity if we dont bring YouTube music experience or delay any further,” PTI reported YouTube Director of Product Management for Music Products T Jay Fowler as saying.
Begun in November 2015, YouTube Music is now available in more than 29 countries. YouTube’s music launch in India is a sign of the steadily growing dominance of Indian content on the platform. For instance, according to Fowler, Indian artists have consistently featured in its top five charts.
“This has been consistent over the last few numbers of months, what we are seeing is Indian music dominating globally. India is an amazing market for us. The product that we are launching in India is quite different from what we have launched elsewhere in the world,” Fowler had said.
YouTube says that between March 1-7, the top three overall artists on the global top artists chart were all Indian: Neha Kakkar, Alka Yagnik and Kumar Sanu.