With 3 million downloads in less than a week of its launch in India, YouTube Music has already become a top favourite among music lovers across the country. From official songs, albums, thousands of playlists, artist radio and YouTube’s tremendous catalog of remixes, live performances, covers and music videos, YouTube Music app has one of the biggest and most vibrant music catalogues in the industry today.

To celebrate the success of its launch with the music fraternity, YouTube hosted a power packed music night which was kicked off by Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube who said, “This year YouTube is celebrating 11 amazing years in India. We’re proud of the extraordinary growth across the platform, especially with music. Our tremendous scale and reach is why many talented artists and creators across India come to YouTube to share their voice with the world. It’s why we’re seeing Indian artists connect with fans from Delhi to New York and everywhere in between.”

She added, “Right here in India, more and more people are using video for entertainment and learning.  And by 2020, it’s expected that 500 million internet users in India will consume online video. The momentum and the potential is vast.”

Reinforcing YouTube’s commitment to the creative community in India, Lyor Cohen, Global Head of Music for YouTube said, “Week to week in 2019, an average one fifth of the entries on the Global Top Songs chart featured Indian artists. The momentum is just getting started and it is truly exciting. We want to champion artists, give back to the industry, and work to better help artists, and labels meet their priorities. Most importantly, our teams are constantly working to strengthen our platform so artists can shine. We are incredibly excited to partner with Indian artists and labels to grow faster and go further. Whether it’s promoting a new video, album, tour or live stream, to ticketing and merchandising, the only place the music industry can touch both commerce and social interaction is YouTube.”

Sharing more details Adam Smith, Vice President, Product Management YouTube Music said, “Our vision with YouTube Music was to build an easy to use experience that gets to know your musical tastes, habits, and serves you music that makes whatever you’re doing better. The app is more personalised than ever, and gains from YouTube’s incredible recommendation engine powered by our machine learning capabilities that creates the magic we all love.”

Setting the stage on fire with their performances were artists from all across the country. Taufiq QureshI Akriti Kakkar, Alka Yagnik, Anirudh Ravichander, Badshah, Devi Sri Prasad, Guru Randhawa, Harshdeep Kaur, Jonita Gandhi and many more. Alan Walker also surprised the audience with his hi-energy act.

Showing support for YouTube Music and the potential it holds to further grow the music industry in India, were senior executives from the leading music labels and prominent personalities such as Javed Akhtar.