In its bid to better compete with Spotify and Apple Music, YouTube Music has rolled out an update offering real-time lyrics to listeners on mobile devices.
YouTube Music updated its app pages on Google Play and Apple’s App Store on Monday (April 10), offering “song lyrics so you can sing along to your favorites.”
The update was spotted by multiple Reddit users, who report that the lyrics are being powered by Musixmatch. LyricFind is also a partner for this feature.
Screenshots of the update shows a background blur effect for the lyrics page, similar to that of Apple Music.
Apple Music started introducing time-synced lyrics in 2019, showing words that animate as the music plays. And in December 2022, Apple Music launched Apple Music Sing, a new karaoke mode that allows users to sing along to songs with adjustable vocals and real-time lyrics.
For Spotify, the most dominant music streaming platform, its interactive lyrics have been around since 2020. The following year, the company partnered with lyrics provider Musixmatch on the feature to “[bring] song lyrics to life through in-app access across the majority of our extensive library of tracks.”
Now, YouTube Music is hopping into the trend with its latest update in its attempt to gain more users.
Back in November, YouTube Music and Premium surpassed 80 million paid subscribers globally.
That stat came as triallists surged 60%, or by around 30 million, year over year at the time.
In comparison, Apple Music surpassed 60 million subscribers in June 2019. The company has not confirmed any updated subscriber number since then.
Meanwhile, Spotify’s subscribers reached 205 million in the fourth quarter of 2022, up 14% year over year, or by 10 million.
Last month, YouTube Music added song and album credits to tracks to let users know the players behind the songs. Around the same time, the platform also rolled out a new feature that allows listeners to download their favorite tracks automatically.
These features have already been available for quite some time for its rivals like Spotify and Apple Music.
YouTube Music only went fully live in June 2018, while Spotify has been operating since 2008 and Apple Music has been around since 2015.
These platforms continue to take advantage of the digitalization of the music industry. By the end of the first half of 2022, there were 616.2 million subscribers to music streaming services globally, according to research from Midia Research.
The figure was up 17.6% from a year earlier. Other major players in the field include Amazon Music, Tencent Music and Deezer.
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