Google's 'YouTube Music' has overtaken the native application 'Melon' to become the number one music streaming service in the domestic market.
App and statistics analysis firm WiseApp announced on the 7th that as of April, the monthly active users (MAU) of the YouTube Music app reached an all-time high of 5.21 million. This is based on a sample survey of 38.71 million smartphone users.
YouTube Music has shown steep growth every year. When the service launched domestically in early 2019, it had only about 640,000 users, but this increased to 2.77 million by April 2021. It then recorded 4 million users in April last year, with a rapid increase of 1.21 million users within a year.
The music industry attributes YouTube Music's rapid growth to a 'bundling' effect. To use YouTube Music alone, users must pay a monthly fee in the 8,000 KRW range. However, Google offers YouTube Music as a bonus to subscribers of 'YouTube Premium,' which costs 10,405 KRW per month and allows ad-free viewing of YouTube videos.
As YouTube Music's growth continues, native music streaming services are losing their foothold. In 2021, Melon had 4.74 million users, showing a gap of about 2 million compared to YouTube Music. However, after the gap narrowed to 500,000 last year, Melon was eventually overtaken this year.
The music service with the largest decrease in users was the native app 'Genie Music.' Its user count dropped by 280,000 from 2.31 million in April last year to 2.03 million this April. During the same period, Flo decreased by 230,000, Kakao Music by 40,000, Bugs by 30,000, and Naver Vibe by 30,000 users respectively.
According to this survey, the music services with the highest monthly user counts in Korea are YouTube Music (5.21 million), Melon (4.59 million), Genie Music (2.03 million), Flo (1.28 million), Naver Vibe (1.10 million), and Spotify (630,000), in that order.
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