YouTube Music Launch Event - App crosses 3 Million users in its first week in India.

An official launch event was held to commemorate YouTube Music's massive entry in India at Taj Lands End Mumbai on 8th April 2019 attended by members of the Indian YouTube and Music fraternity. YouTube Music was launched in India in March 2019 and has already crossed 3 Million users since. Speaking at the event, Susan Wojcicki, Chief Executive Officer of YouTube said - 

Our Scale and reach is why so many talented artists and creators from India come to YouTube so they can share their incredible voices, talents with the world. And that is why we are seeing Indian Artists connect with fans from Delhi to Los Angeles and everywhere in between"

Susan also mentioned that video consumption has increased in India and by the year 2020 they are expecting 500 Million users that will consume online video in India.  It is also quite notable that in a span of 1 year eight Indian videos have crossed 500 Million views on YouTube.

This momentum and potential is vast and is just the beginning of our partnership with artists here in India"

Also present at the launch event was Lyor Cohen, Global Head of Music for YouTube. Speaking on this occasion he said -

We know that promotion and reach is important but revenue is critical and that is why we believe in the twin engine growth - Advertising + Subscription. We are therefore staying laser focused to deliver reach and revenue for the artistic community whether through our workshops, fan fests or even our originals. Our goal is to work back to back in building very large and healthy Indian music business. We are incredibly excited to partner with Indian artists and labels and grow faster and grow further.

The evening was marked with performances by classical music artist - Taufiq Qureshi, followed by Clinton Cerejo with Bianca Gomes and Sonu Kakkar, Sufi Singer Harshdeep Kaur, South-Indian film composer and also one of the youngest at the time of his debut - Anirudh Ravichander along with singer Jonita Gandi, Devi Sri Prasad and Akriti Kakar. The headlining acts of the evening included one of India's most beloved artist - Alka Yagnik, Punjabi singer-songwriter and superstar Guru Randhawa and final performance by one of the biggest names in Bollywood music - Badshah who was accompanied by upcoming singer Aastha Gill and the Dharavi Project. The show ended with a surprise DJ set by World Renowned EDM artist Alan Walker. YouTube Music was launched with two variants. Users can enjoy the new ad-supported version of YouTube Music for free. While there is also an option of a Paid membership called YouTube Music Premium that allows you to play a YouTube music video in the background. This means, users are now able to switch between different apps and multi-task or even lock the phone screen, a convenient feature that was missing earlier and is now finally available much to the rejoice of all app users Other notable features of YouTube Music’s premium service are offline downloads and an ad-free experience. Prices start at Rs. 99 per month for a subscription to access YouTube vast library of music. A new feature called "smart search" lets users  search a song by its lyrics or simply look for a song with certain keywords like "That Hip Hop Song with a flute"