A new Bloomberg reports says that Google Play Music and YouTube Music combined just surpassed the 15 million user mark. That’s well below Spotify’s 100 million subscribers and Apple Music’s 50 million and is, I believe, the first real glimpse we’ve gotten at the services’ usage.
The Google Play Music and YouTube Music usage comes courtesy of two sources familiar with the numbers, Bloomberg says. And it includes some users who are still on promotional trials.
Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!
"*" indicates required fields
As the publication notes, the figure may seem a bit low compared to the market leaders, but it also needs to be put in perspective: Google’s primary business model is ad-driven, and this usage is made up almost entirely of customers who have chosen to pay the firm for the services. So it’s probably not a bad figure, comparatively. And I’m sure it’s higher usage than Microsoft ever saw with Zune/Xbox Music/Groove.
Interestingly, 5 million of those users are on the newer and, I think, inferior YouTube Music service, which debuted last May.
Google didn’t confirm the 15 million users milestone, but it did say that usage in the two services grew by 60 percent between March 2018 and March 2019. And YouTube TV, the company’s cord-cutting service, has an additional 1 million users.
Dryloch
<p>If more people knew Play Music comes with commercial free YouTube they would do a lot better. I have been on it for years and watch a lot of YouTube</p><p><br></p>
Bats
<p>Speaking about ad-driven….when I do a Google Search I see two very small text ads. When I go to Thurrott.com, I see 1,2….6 visual image ads. OMG.</p>
Stooks
<blockquote><em><a href="#426868">In reply to Bats:</a></em></blockquote><p>New Edge DEV version with Adblock and Ublock extensions = ZERO ads on this site :)</p>
Stooks
<p>Typical Google fashion…..confuse the FFFFF out of the customer with multiple apps for the same thing. Like Android messenger, Hangouts, DUO and ALLO.</p><p><br></p><p>You can watch that video on…..</p><p><br></p><p>YouTube</p><p>YouTube Red</p><p>YouTube Gaming?</p><p>YouTube TV</p><p>Google Play videos</p><p><br></p><p>??????</p>