What you need to know
- YouTube is rolling out a special subscription tier just for select users in India, France, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
- With this tier, users can share their premium subscription with one other person in their household.
- This move is set to increase the adoptability of the otherwise expensive Premium tier.
YouTube seems to be finding new ways to increase its premium subscribers. According to a new report, it looks like the streaming platform has piloted a new subscription tier in India, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. This allows users to share their premium subscription with another household member, as opposed to having two subscriptions in the same house. (first reported by MoneyControl)
According to the publication, the two-person Premium subscription tier is being offered in India at a monthly cost of Rs 219, while the Music Premium subscription tier is available at Rs 149 per month during the pilot.
The prerequisites for this are that the two people sharing this subscription should be 13 years or older, have a working Google account, and most importantly, they should be a part of the same Google family group (Google lets you create a virtual family group to share services).
However, it will only allow two people to share the YouTube premium subscription as opposed to everyone else in that group.
YouTube told the publication that it is "experimenting with new ways to provide greater flexibility and value to our YouTube Premium subscribers, including offering a two-person Premium plan option, allowing two people to share a subscription at a reduced cost.”
This move could make it feasible for more people to adopt the premium subscription, specifically between couples, roommates, or family members in the same house, instead of paying for the same subscription twice, which comes up to Rs 298 (149 *2). That would cost almost the same price as YouTube Premium's Family Plan, where six people get to share the subscription for Rs 299.
YouTube Premium has seen a steady price increase over the last two years in many countries across the world. India was also one of the markets that was hit by hike in prices. Rates went up anywhere between 12-60% based on the tire you've subscribed to.
During the most recent earnings call, Alphabet reported record first-quarter earnings, attributing some of it to YouTube's advertising, which brought in $8.93 billion. "Through all this growth, subscriptions are now a big part of the business. We continue to diversify subscription options," CEO Sundar Pichai said during the earnings call.
It remains unclear if this tier will expand to other countries across the globe, considering it would be beneficial and frugal for many with multiple streaming subscriptions. Android Central has reached out to Google about this and will update this article once we have more information.
