YouTube music debuts in India

YouTube music platform will now be available in India to cash in on the rising data consumption and demand for Indian melodies across the globe, a director of Google's popular video service said Tuesday.

YouTube on Tuesday launched both free and paid version of music platforms that will offer all genre of Indian music as well as western charts.

"We are seeing lot of engagement across diverse set of content in India and India is exporting tremendous amount of music culture. We have seen explosive amount of growth in terms of consumption in India over last two years and I think it will be missed opportunity if we dont bring YouTube music experience or delay any further," You Tube Director of Product Management for Music Products T Jay Fowler told PTI.

Started in November 2015, YouTube Music had been available in around 29 countries. In India, YouTube has been only offering online videos.

Fowler said that YouTube music app built for India is different from the app that is available in other parts of the world in terms of customisation that the company has done.

"In February we saw global most played artist chart. Indian artist were among top five. This has been consistent since last few number of months, what we are seeing is Indian music dominating globally. India is an amazing market for us. The product that we are launching in India is quite different from what we have launched elsewhere in the world," Fowler said.

According to YouTube, between March 1-7, the top three overall artists on the global top artists chart were all Indians- Neha Kakkar , Alka Yagnik and Kumar Sanu.

A year ago no videos featuring Indian artists hard surpassed 500 million views on YouTube but now eight videos have reached the milestone.

Over the last year artists like Guru Randhawa, Badshah, Arijit Singh and Neha Kakkar have reached the YouTube music country charts in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, along with the global chart.

YouTube has announced free version of the music app which will be ad-supported. There will also be a paid version of the app, YouTube Music Premium for Rs 99 per month, that will allow users to play songs and videos in the background, while they toggle between apps, write a text message or lock their phone during a run.

YouTube Music Premium will also offers offline downloads and a completely ad-free experience.