YouTube Shows Progress in Subscriber Race With Spotify, Netflix

YouTube is gaining ground in a field where it’s long trailed behind rivals: Getting consumers to pay.

Google’s video service now has 30 million paid subscribers for its ads-free offering and 3 million for its cord-cutting product, YouTube TV, the company announced on Thursday during its blowout third-quarter earnings report.

Advertising still accounts for the lion’s share of YouTube’s business — the company racked up $5 billion in ad sales last quarter. But the subscriber numbers show some progress in the company’s long effort to turn its massive catalog of music videos and clips into paid offerings that compete with Netflix Inc. and Spotify Technology SA. YouTube has added 10 million paying customers for its main service and about 1 million for YouTube TV since February, the last time Alphabet Inc.’s Google disclosed the figures.