YouTube Music is Fastest Growing Music Streaming App in the West

Many music streaming apps, Spotify and Apple Music, are currently dominating the market. Google has also been pushing YouTube Music since the end f Play Music, and it seems like those efforts are paying off. YouTube Music is now the fastest-growing music-streaming app in Western markets.

A new study by Midia Research, reported by Variety, reveals that worldwide streaming subscriptions increased by a solid 26.4 percent from Q2 2020 to Q2 2021. In total, 521.3 million users have subscribed to music streaming apps, and 109.5 million of those joined during the previous year. Other streaming apps like Spotify and Apple Music also saw growth of 20% and 25%, respectively, YouTube Music grew by a whopping 50%, making it by far the fastest growing app in the west.

It is still has a modest 8% share of the market compared to Spotify’s 31% and Apple Music’s 15%. It’s slowly but surely getting there, though, especially since it was the only app out of the three to significantly increase its market share during that period. Two services only available in China — Tencent Music Entertainment and NetEase Cloud Music — account for 18% of the worldwide streaming market and added 35.7 million users during the 12 months studied.