YouTube confirmed in June that a music service offering, which will most likely be called YouTube Music Key, is already on its way.
The subscription music service was initially intended to debut in the latter part of 2014. However, the company is still working out the details of the new offering.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has not confirmed, however, when the service will be available, only saying that the company is working on the offer and hopes that it arrives soon.
"YouTube right now is ad-supported, which is great because it has enabled us to scale to a billion users; but there's going to be a point where people don't want to see the ads," said Wojcicki at the Re/code mobile conference. "Consumers generally will either choose ads, or pay a fee, which is an interesting model. We're thinking about how to give users options."
Wojcicki said that YouTube is also considering other money-making options. One of these would be offering users the choice of getting a paid subscription. In turn, users could view ad-free videos on the site.
Wojcicki admits that one of the obstacles in launching the service is defining the options to give its users. This includes making decisions on the pricing tiers and the inclusive feature that goes with every plan. Understanding the fact that the service should include concert footage and similar videos, it could become a little more complex than the services offered by competitors such as Spotify.
There's also the fact that the service's launch is affected by reports of a negative relationship with independent music labels, coupled with the departure of some of the company's key executives.
Wojcicki reveals that 50 percent of the viewing activities on YouTube now comes from smartphones. She also adds that the site continues to grow by 50 percent each year based on watch time. However, the amount of time that users spend on YouTube is still not close enough to the average amount of time that they spend on watching TV every day.
According to eMarketer, video ad revenues from YouTube will reach up to $1.13 billion in the U.S. toward the end of 2014.
The video site notches over a billion unique monthly visitors and also provides video streaming load equivalent to about three months worth of video content viewed every minute.
With all these viewing activities, YouTube is now North America's top source of traffic on the Internet, done on a mobile platform, reports researcher Sandvine.
