YouTube has signed up more than 50 million paid subscribers to its music service, a major milestone for Google's video site that has long been criticised by record labels and Hollywood studios for giving away their work for free.
That 50 million figure includes people paying for YouTube Music, customers for YouTube Premium, who get music as part of their subscription, as well as customers still on a trial basis.
The company didn't disclose how much revenue it was generating from its subscriptions, nor the average price the users paid.
Google has experimented with charging for music for the last decade, cycling through several different products and names without much success.
But the performance of the current music service, rolled out in June 2018, suggests YouTube has finally figured out how to persuade many of its customers to pay for music.
YouTube is the fastest-growing paid music service in the world, according to Midia Research, and now accounts for about 8% of the world's subscribers. Spotify is first by a wide margin.
Its free advertising-supported business already makes it one of the largest media businesses in the world.
YouTube reported advertising sales of $7 billion in the most recent quarter, up 84% from a year ago.
But YouTube was the music industry's bete noire (black beast), a technology company owned by an even larger technology company, both founded on the idea that information should be free and easily accessible.
The company had been sued for violating copyright and labeled evil by many of its detractors in the entertainment.
The music industry, which blamed the internet for a 15-year decline in its sales, wanted people to pay for music.
Executives lamented that YouTube could build a massive subscription business if it wanted to. If the company converted just 5% of its two billion users it would have 100 million subscribers. But it has always prioritised its advertising business above all else.
YouTube signed new deals with all of the major music rightsholders in late 2017 and early 2018, paving the way for the new service in June of that year.
YouTube Music didn't get much traction in its first 10 months, according to Robert Kyncl, YouTube's chief business officer.
The company had few of the resources needed to build a subscription business.
It didn't know where to invest in marketing to convert its free users. Should it target wealthy countries like the US and UK where marketing is expensive but people have money, or in poorer countries where marketing is cheap but customers wouldn't pay as much? It didn't know how to prevent people who signed up for the service from dropping it, on purpose or inadvertently.
But over the past couple of years, YouTube has spent a significant amount of money marketing the service, and has built up the teams and infrastructure to attract new customers and maintain them.
"Music has always been a pivotal part of their platform, so it's great to see them become a dynamic force in subscription streaming too," said Max Lousada, the chief executive officer of recorded music at Warner Music Group.
