This app finally casts a spellSource: Ara Wagoner / Android Central

What you need to know

  • Google's YouTube Premium has found some success in India.
  • The firm's growth rate outpaces that of local behemoths like Gaana Music.
  • This has mostly been attributed to Google's YouTube Music service, which pulls in more paid users than rivals.

Google's paid YouTube Music service is actually competitive in some regions. According to a report from Bloomberg, the service has outpaced Spotify and local services like Gaana Music in India and signed up over 800,000 subscribers in the region.

To put the numbers in context, Gaana Music has over 125 million users overall and a bit more than 1 million users for its paid service. It has been around for a decade, launching in April 2010. YouTube Premium made its Indian debut in March.

According to Bloomberg, YouTube Music drives the uptake of the paid Premium service. While services like Spotify allow users to play music in the background with the occasional ads, YouTube Music needs a premium subscription for that. YouTube bundles both ad-free YouTube and YouTube Premium together for rs 129 (about $1.80) and also offers pay as you go plans. It's no wonder the firm is more easily able to pull people over in a more price-sensitive market compared to local competitors.

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YouTube Music isn't a perfect service, far from it. But as this report shows, it's not without its audience. Now, Google needs to work on making it work better for everyone.

YouTube Music's biggest problem is it's the green bubble to Spotify's iMessage