YouTube Premium and YouTube Music make Pakistan debut

KARACHI: The world-famous streaming platform, YouTube, has announced the debut of "YouTube Premium", and "YouTube Music" in Pakistan.

YouTube Premium is a paid membership that offers the ultimate ad-free viewing experience on YouTube, a statement released by the online streaming company said.

The new app provides users with a viewing experience uninterrupted by ads, background plays for multi-tasking between apps or listening to lectures and other educational videos, and downloads of their favorite shows and content creators for long flights or on commutes with limited access.

Meanwhile, YouTube Music is a music streaming app that offers an immersive listening experience. It is a reimagined, made-for-music app and web player with official songs, albums, playlists, and artist radio plus YouTube’s tremendous catalog of remixes, live performances, covers, and music videos.

With this app, users can listen to the latest hits, find songs they love, stay connected to the music world, and discover tons of new music to enjoy on their devices.

While all this is available for free in the ad-supported version of YouTube Music, users can also choose to have an ad-free music experience by joining YouTube Music Premium, included in YouTube Premium.

The premium version of YouTube Music offers background play and downloads via YouTube Music, along with an ad-free listening experience.

Google's Director for Pakistan, Farhan S Qureshi said that over 400 channels have more than 1 million subscribers in Pakistan, which is an increase of over 35%, year over year while over 6,000 channels have over 100K subscribers, an increase of over 30%, year over year.

"That’s an impressive number! This makes me even more excited for YouTube to be part of this fast growth ecosystem and to continue our partnership with the Pakistani creative industry and support more Pakistani artists to grow their audience with YouTube Premium and YouTube Music.”

As the ultimate entertainment services make their way to Pakistan, more local artists are sharing their works and creations on YouTube, such as music video premieres, YouTube exclusive content, and featured song lists, and are expanding their fanbase globally.

The users can avail the YouTube Premium for Rs479 per month, with a membership to YouTube Music Premium.

They can also sign up for Premium Family Plan, starting from Rs899.00 per month, which allows them to share their Premium membership with up to 5 other members of their household.

Meanwhile, YouTube Music Premium is available for Rs299 and the Music Premium Family Plan starts at Rs479.

Eligible students can also sign up for Premium Student Plan which is available for Rs329 and Music Premium Student Plan for Rs149 on the web and Android devices.

Eligible users can get a special introductory offer of 1 month free for YouTube Premium or YouTube Music Premium.

The YouTube Music app can be downloaded from the Google Play Store and iOS App Store.