Google has announced annual plans for its YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium services in India and a few other countries. What's more, there is also an inaugural discounted pricing offer till January 23 on these 12-month plans.
Hitherto in India, YouTube had been taking only monthly or quarterly subscriptions for these two services that provide ad-free streaming.
As of now, YouTube has extended these annual plans only to individual users, while Student and Family account users have been kept out of it.
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The offer pricing and other details
According to Google, the YouTube Premium annual plan is priced at Rs 1,159 and the YouTube Music Premium annual plan is priced at Rs 889. The company has not revealed what the cost would be once the promotional offer period ends.
YouTube Premium is currently offered at Rs 129 per month and YouTube Music Premium at Rs 99 per month.
Aside from India, the new annual plans are currently limited to the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Russia, Turkey, Germany, Thailand and Japan.
Google, which owns YouTube, said existing users can move over to the annual Premium plan by cancelling their existing membership and signing up afresh. Further, prepaid users in India on quarterly or monthly schemes will automatically be shifted to the annual plans once their existing ones expire.
The YouTube Premium annual plans can be signed up for using Android and the Web. However, the company is yet to provide an in-app sign-up option for iOS devices. This, of course, means that iPhone and iPad users wanting to purchase the annual subscription will have to complete the formalities through computer or mobile web browser.
YouTube Premium annual plans have been introduced on a prepaid basis, with a non-recurring nature. It means that users will have to pay the entire subscription amount upfront. And once the subscription ends, users will have to purchase a new plan. Basically, YouTube won’t automatically renew at the end of one year.
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