YouTube ‘most popular music streaming platform in key markets’

This is according to a report published recently by research firm YouGov. The data is based on interviews with adults aged 18 and above in the US, UK, France and India.

About 44% of the US adult population uses YouTube for music compared to Spotify (27%), Pandora (25%), Amazon Prime Music (24%), and Apple Music and iHeartRadio, both of which account for 12% of total music consumption.

The study zoomed in on data for the 18-to-34 age demographic, with 53% and 45% of the group consuming YouTube and Spotify, respectively.

Music consumption in France mirrors consumer behaviour in the US, with 44% of adults and 53% of 18 to 34 year olds opting for YouTube over other music services.

In the UK, however, the study says only 19% of the adult population use YouTube for music, compared to 31% who use Spotify. For 18 to 34 year olds, YouTube accounts for 25% compared to Spotify’s 54%, according to the UK research firm.

“As people spent more time at home last year, they turned to streaming services for entertainment and information,” the report reads. “It wasn’t just video streaming that took centre stage in people’s lives as they sought out entertainment and distraction; the COVID-19 pandemic also amplified forms of audio listening, especially podcasts and music streaming.”

“The differences in platform usage by age are likely tied to overall differences in music listening. Americans aged 18 to 34 prefer music streaming over CDs and downloaded music, making platforms like YouTube and Spotify a natural fit because they allow users to search for the specific song or album they want to listen to. Adults aged 50 and over, on the other hand, largely listen to radio in the car and their CD collection”.

In India, the data claims that 66% of all urban Indian adults prefer YouTube to listen to music, followed by Amazon Prime Music (37%), Gaana (33%), Google Play Music and JioSaavn (both 30%) and Spotify (24%). Google Play Music has become defunct since the study was conducted.

In November last year, YouTube claimed that more than 2 billion people consume music on the platform. In a recent UK parliamentary inquiry into the economics of music streaming, British Phonographic Industry boss Geoff Taylor said that YouTube should be viewed as a music streaming platform ­– although it is technically classified as a video-sharing platform.

“I wouldn’t call them [YouTube] a platform. They’re a music service ­– 450 of the top 500 most viewed videos are music-related,” Taylor said, adding that YouTube‘s monopoly of the streaming market was suffocating DSP price increases in the UK, and by extension higher payouts for artists.

Meanwhile, YouTube last week launched TikTok-rival app Shorts in the US. The short-form video service was piloted in India and had already garnered more than 6.5 billion views a day. The platform says it will soon launch the ability to use audio from videos across YouTube, which would include billions of videos worldwide.