YouTube Red to land in Australia this year

YouTube Red canvasThe Google/Alphabet empire appears to be setting its sights on Australia next. According to a report from The Australian, joint video/music subscription YouTube Red is slated to roll out there later this year.

Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s chief business officer, shared some heavily veiled insights on the platform’s performance so far in the U.S., the only place where it is currently available. “It’s tracking exactly to our plans,” he said. “We have been at it for three months, people are coming off free trials and signing up. We are happy with progress.”

He indicated that although there have been big efforts to sign up subscribers, ad revenue will be a bigger slice of the pie. “We will bring another billion people online in India and Indonesia and Brazil and Mexico where the ability to pay subs is not so high,” he added. “So likely, long term, our ad business will be much larger.”

Anna Washenko