YouTube’s subscription music streaming service lags far behind its biggest competitors

YouTube may be the king of online video, but its subscription music streaming service is trailing far behind its biggest competitors.  

According to a report in , Google now has 15 million paid subscribers — a number that includes customers on free trials, per sources  — across its two paid music streaming services, YouTube Music and Google Play Music. (The search giant has not made their subscriber base public; the number comes from two sources familiar with the subscription numbers.)

Meanwhile, Spotify around 100 million paying subscribers, as well as another 115 million users on its free, ad-supported tier. Apple Music has nearly subscribers on its paid and trial plans.

But there is some good news for YouTube Music. It’s blown past another well-known streaming music company, Pandora, which currently has just under .

Subscription-based music streaming is blowing up. The three major U.S. music labels are reportedly making a whopping from these services.

A major reason why YouTube Music, which costs $9.99 a month, is so far behind in subscriptions could be that the YouTube platform is mostly known for its free-to-watch content. When ad-supported video is taken into account, YouTube rises to the top of the streaming music services. Note: the Google Play Music service is being phased out and will soon be combined into YouTube’s offering.

A study last year found that of all global music consumption happens on YouTube alone.