YouTube recently launched a monthly subscription service for its US users at $7.99. In addition to music content, most videos can be played without ads. In the coming weeks, YouTube will also make Premium Lite available to all users in our current pilot countries—Thailand, Germany, and Australia.
This new plan, called “Premium Lite,” is mainly aimed at users who rarely watch music videos or listen to music. Despite YouTube’s dominance in the streaming music market, many users barely use music-related features.
Currently, YouTube offers a Premium subscription service for $13.99 monthly, exempting all ads, including music content. The other plan, which costs $10.99, only offers ad-free music videos, which is the opposite of the “Premium Lite” model.
According to the report, many users are already paying on other music streaming platforms, so YouTube is seeing demand for a subscription model that only removes video ads.
John Harding, YouTube’s vice president of engineering, said the primary purpose of the new initiative is to reach a wider audience and make them willing to pay for YouTube’s services.
Jake Greenberg, Director of Product for YouTube Premium, said, “YouTube’s previous subscription model didn’t do well for users who didn’t need music content, so we made this change. ”
YouTube also announced today that its total number of paid users has surpassed 125 million, up from 100 million in January 2024. However, this data includes users who are using a limited-time free trial.
Advertising continues to be YouTube’s primary source of revenue, accounting for $36 billion of Alphabet’s total revenue of $350 billion last year, while subscriptions are rising.
Source – Official Youtube Blog
