YouTube Premium and YouTube Music now available in India: features, price and more

In the wake of Spotify’s India debut, Google launched YouTube Music along with YouTube Premium service on the night of March 12. This changes the streaming turf in the country by manifolds and YouTube being already established in the Indian music industry. One doesn’t even have to look far, just look at the ongoing tussle between T-Series and PewDiePie.

So, YouTube Music is here as a one-stop solution to all your music streaming requirements. It’s got official songs, albums, playlists and radio channels of popular artists. In addition to that, the Music app also gets access to YouTube’s humongous and exclusive catalog of music videos, covers of popular songs and more.

The YouTube Music app can be used for free albeit with ads. For an ad-free experience, Google offers YouTube Music Premium which lets users listen to music with screen-off. Google is one of the pioneers in the AI business and with its exceptionally well-created recommendations, one can be sure that it won’t be a letdown.

With its algorithms, the homescreen is filled with recommendations based on the music streamed earlier. The app also suggests music based on location and time of day.

But quite possibly the best feature out of the whole lot is the ability to minimize the YouTube Music app and it will run in the background. The app will work just like any other music streaming app and even works when the phone is locked.

Google also brings its YouTube Premium service to India with a slew of new additions to the YouTube app. Now, one can subscribe to YouTube Premium and watch videos ad-free, download more videos than ever and even play a video in the background if your phone supports picture-in-picture mode. Its YouTube Originals productions are also available to stream in India.

YouTube Premium and YouTube Music subscription prices

The ad-free YouTube Music can be subscribed at Rs 99 per month but we recommend you to go for the YouTube Premium subscription which costs Rs 129 and is a steal. For that price, you get access to both YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium features. 

Siddharth Chauhan
Siddharth Chauhan is the Consumer Technology Reporter at Digit India. He used to work as an Assistant Editor at TechRadar India