YouTube Music hits 5 Billion downloads on Google Play

The YouTube Music app has now reached an impressive 5 billion downloads on the Google Play Store, seven years after it first came out. This achievement was expected, but YouTube Music had a bumpy start. When Google decided to replace Google Play Music with YouTube Music in 2019, many users were not happy with the change.

Since then, YouTube Music has become the go-to music streaming app on most Android phones. It comes pre-installed on new devices running Android 10 and later versions, which has certainly helped increase its download numbers.

For comparison, Spotify, which is the largest music streaming service globally, has only reached 1 billion downloads on the Play Store. Not everyone who downloads these apps ends up using or subscribing to them. By February 2024, YouTube Premium boasted 100 million subscribers. You can use YouTube Music without a premium subscription, but some features like downloading songs for offline listening require one.

Google has also been promoting YouTube Music as a place to listen to podcasts, which might explain some of the recent downloads. However, the app primarily focuses on music, gradually adding features that were popular in Google Play Music.

The 5 billion download milestone includes many who might not have actually used the app, as well as those who got it automatically when updating or buying new Android phones.

Despite this, YouTube Music has joined an exclusive group of apps with over 5 billion downloads on Android, following closely behind Files by Google, which also hit this number recently. It’s now among the top 21 apps to reach this level, mainly because it’s on almost every new Android device. This makes YouTube Music accessible to nearly everyone with an Android phone.