How Many People Use YouTube Premium in 2024? (Users Stats)

YouTube Premium Users: How Many People Use YouTube Premium in 2024?

Hi friend! Have you ever been in the middle of watching a YouTube video when an annoying ad pops up and interrupts your viewing? Or wanted to download a video to watch later when you‘ll be offline? If so, you‘re not alone. Millions of people are signing up for YouTube Premium to get an ad-free viewing experience and other handy features.

But how many people actually use YouTube Premium nowadays? In this article, we‘ll take a deep dive into the latest YouTube Premium subscriber statistics to answer questions like:

• How many subscribers does Premium have globally and in the US?
• How much has Premium grown over the past few years?
• What are analysts forecasting for Premium adoption in 2024 and beyond?
• How does Premium subscriber count compare to YouTube‘s overall user base?

Let‘s get into the numbers!

YouTube Premium Users: 80 Million Global Subscribers and Counting

As of January 2024, YouTube Premium has over 80 million paying subscribers worldwide. This represents impressive growth for the paid service, which struggled to gain traction after initially launching in 2014.

To put that 80 million Premium subscribers figure into context, YouTube as a whole reported over 2.6 billion logged-in monthly active users in 2022. So Premium represents only around 3% of YouTube‘s total user base at the moment.

But the important thing is that Premium subscriptions are rapidly increasing each year. To understand just how quickly it has grown, let‘s look at a brief history…

A Brief History of YouTube Premium

YouTube Premium started life back in 2014 as Music Key, a music streaming service similar to Spotify. Adoption was slow out of the gate, with only about 1.5 million subscribers signing up in its first year.

In 2015, YouTube transitioned the service to YouTube Red, expanding it beyond music to offer ad-free access to all YouTube videos. YouTube Red also added new features like offline viewing. But subscriptions remained relatively modest, hitting 3 million in 2016.

It wasn‘t until YouTube re-branded again to the current YouTube Premium name in 2018 that growth really accelerated. Premium got a big boost from improvements like:

• Launch of YouTube Originals in 2016 – Exclusive shows and movies
• Enhanced background play features
• Offline downloading for non-music videos
• Overall better marketing and promotion of Premium benefits

These changes helped push Premium to over 50 million global subscribers by 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic likely played a role too, with people stuck at home looking for entertainment.

Let‘s take a more in-depth look at how subscribers have grown year-over-year…

YouTube Premium Global Subscribers by Year

Year	Global YouTube Premium Subscribers
2015	1.5 million
2016	3 million
2017	2.8 million
2018	10 million
2019	18 million
2020	30 million
2021	50 million
2022	80 million

As you can see from the table, growth remained slow in Premium‘s early years but then hit an inflection point around 2018. The last three years in particular have seen massive growth, with subscribers more than doubling from 30 million to 80 million between 2020 and 2022.

This hockey stick growth curve is a positive sign for Premium‘s future potential. And geographically, most of this growth is coming from international markets outside the US, suggesting there are still plenty of new markets for Premium to expand into.

Premium Subscribers in the United States

Now let‘s specifically look at YouTube Premium adoption in the United States, its largest market. Here are the numbers over the last few years:

• 2020: 20 million U.S. subscribers
• 2021: 23.6 million U.S. subscribers
• 2022: 25.5 million U.S. subscribers

So the U.S. still accounts for around 30-35% of YouTube Premium‘s global subscriber base. But growth is faster in international markets like Europe, Asia, and Latin America. This implies there‘s still room for Premium to expand its American subscriber count in the years ahead.

YouTube Premium Growth Projections for 2024 and Beyond

Based on the rapid growth we‘ve seen recently, analysts predict YouTube Premium will continue expanding at a healthy clip over the next couple years:

• 2024: Forecast 26.7 million U.S. subscribers, 107 million global subscribers
• 2024: Forecast 27.9 million U.S. subscribers, 125 million global subscribers

Driving this growth is YouTube‘s continued investment into Premium features and exclusive original content. Just in February 2024, they announced plans to launch over 130 new titles globally this year.

Premium also still has substantial room to expand relative to YouTube‘s massive 2.6 billion total users. If Premium adoption reached even 5% over the coming years, that would be over 130 million subscribers.

The only real threats to growth are competition from services like Netflix and Hulu, plus the possibility that users feel less need for Premium after the pandemic. But the reasonable $11.99 U.S. monthly price point should help fend off switching.

Overall, the forecasts suggest Premium still has a long runway for expansion left. Now let‘s look at some of the specific benefits that are attracting millions of subscribers.

Why People Love YouTube Premium: Key Benefits

So why are people so eager to hand over money for a YouTube Premium subscription? There are four primary benefits driving adoption:

1. An Ad-Free Experience

The biggest perk of Premium is skipping all video ads on YouTube. This allows for uninterrupted viewing of your favorite videos and content creators. For heavy YouTube users, it‘s a game changer.

2. Offline Downloads

With Premium, you can download any video to watch offline later, even without an internet connection. No need to worry about buffering or wasting mobile data.

3. Background Play

Keep videos playing on your phone even when you switch to other apps. You can listen to music or podcasts while texting or using other apps.

4. YouTube Originals

Get access to exclusive original shows, movies, documentaries only available to Premium subscribers. Popular Originals like Cobra Kai help drive sign-ups.

There are also some smaller perks like ad-free music listening on YouTube Music and support for Google Home/Chromecast devices. But the big four benefits above drive most of the demand.

For people who spend lots of time on YouTube daily, the removal of ads and offline viewing alone can make Premium a no-brainer.

YouTube Premium Pricing: How Much Does It Cost?

Here‘s a quick breakdown of YouTube Premium‘s pricing options:

• Individual plan: $11.99 per month in the U.S.
• Family plan: $17.99 per month for up to 5 members
• Student plan: Discounted to $6.99 per month

Users can also opt to pay $107.99 for an annual individual Premium subscription and save some money.

This puts Premium right in line price-wise with competitors like Netflix and Hulu, which both start at around $10-$15 per month in the U.S. It‘s affordable enough to drive mass market adoption while still providing meaningful revenue.

YouTube even offers new users a 1-month free trial so you can test out Premium benefits risk-free.

Given the reasonable pricing and free trial, YouTube still has plenty of room to convert casual viewers into paying Premium subscribers. The ad-free experience alone can make that monthly fee worthwhile for regular YouTube users.

YouTube Premium vs. Overall YouTube Users

Now that we‘ve gone deep on YouTube Premium subscribers, let‘s zoom back out to look at YouTube‘s total user base for some perspective.

Here‘s a snapshot of YouTube‘s logged-in monthly active users over the past five years:

Year	YouTube Logged-In Monthly Active Users
2017	1.6 billion
2018	1.8 billion
2019	2 billion
2020	2.3 billion
2021	2.5 billion
2022	2.6 billion

YouTube‘s immense, still-growing user base is what gives Premium so much potential. With over 2.6 billion monthly active users, but only 80 million Premium subscribers so far, there‘s still a huge untapped audience available.

If YouTube can convert just 5% more of those users to paid Premium in the coming years, that would double subscriptions to over 160 million. The key will be continuing to invest in exclusive original content and enhanced features to boost Premium‘s appeal.

But this also means over 97% of current YouTube users are still consuming the free, ad-supported version. So the ad business will remain crucial even as Premium grows. Maintaining that dual revenue stream is powerful.

The Bottom Line

While Premium got off to a slow start after launching in 2014, it has absolutely exploded in popularity over the past few years. Impressive growth now has global subscriptions over 80 million as of 2024.

And the trends suggest Premium still has a long runway for expansion ahead, especially in international markets. Forecasts call for over 125 million subscribers globally by 2024.

YouTube will need to fend off competition while continuing to deliver a compelling ad-free viewing experience. But with reasonable pricing and integration into YouTube‘s 2.6 billion existing users, Premium is positioned for a bright future.

The days of ads constantly interrupting your YouTube viewing may be numbered. Premium offers heavy YouTube users the seamless viewing experience they crave. Based on the growth so far, millions more are likely to make the upgrade in the years ahead.