Alphabet GOOGL is benefiting from strength in the Google Services segment, which is mainly driven by Search, YouTube and Android.
The company is continuously expanding YouTube’s capabilities to strengthen the Google Services segment.
Per a 9to5Google report, Alphabet recently announced its plans to add a “personal radio” feature to YouTube Music, enabling users to publicly share their personal radio on their profile/channel page. Users can enable this feature by navigating to YouTube Music, selecting their profile icon, and then enabling public stats or public personal radio.
This apart, the company added a “Mark as played” feature to YouTube Music, allowing podcasters to mark an episode as played or unplayed, with confirmation messages appearing in the overflow menu.
Alphabet’s partnership with Garmin GRMN in a bid to boost YouTube Music’s adoption rate by expanding its reach to more platforms remains noteworthy.
The YouTube Music app is now available on Garmin IQ Connect smartwatches. The app experience is similar to Wear OS watches, with users able to search their library for music and podcasts and a slick playing page with physical buttons for play, pause, and skip.
Growing YouTube Music efforts will enable Alphabet to capitalize on the solid growth opportunity present in the music streaming market, which, per a Grand View Research report, is expected to witness a CAGR of 14.4% between 2023 and 2030.
Moreover, it would also aid Alphabet in narrowing down its gap with Spotify SPOT and Amazon AMZN.
Per a Statista report, Spotify maintained its dominant position in the music streaming space in 2023, with a market share of 32%.
Amazon, on the other hand, is making continuous efforts to strengthen its foothold in the music streaming market with Amazon Music. It recently introduced Maestro, an AI playlist generator, in Amazon Music, enabling users to create any and all playlists, with the feature currently in beta for select U.S. customers.
Expanding Google Services Aids Prospects
Google rolled out an updated version of YouTube’s "Erase Song" tool, which allows content creators to remove copyrighted songs from videos without affecting other audio.
The company also added a Cast menu redesign to the YouTube app. The updated Cast icon now features a floating bottom sheet with rounded corners, allowing users to control volume and voice search, and also provides remote control options for televisions.
In addition to YouTube, Alphabet is making concerted efforts to enhance its search and Android capabilities in a bid to further boost the Google Services segment.
Alphabet bolstered its search capabilities with the addition of a “Listen to this page” text-to-speech feature on Google Chrome, enabling users to hear texts on web pages. This new feature will support several languages, including Arabic, Bengali, English, French, Chinese, German, Hindi and Portuguese, to name a few.
The company recently introduced an “Everything else” feature in Google Wallet for Android to create digital passes for its users. This option allows users to scan a photo of any pass to create a digital version in Google Wallet.
Google upgraded the Locked Folder for Google Photos to bolster its Android offerings. With this new upgrade, a “Locked” option appears directly next to the Favorites, Archive and Trash options in the Google Photos app for much faster access.
All the above-mentioned endeavors are expected to drive the performance of the Google Services segment, which is the key growth catalyst for the company. In the second quarter of 2024, revenues from the Google Services business increased 11.5% year over year to $73.93 billion, accounting for 87.2% of the total revenues.
The strengthening Google Services segment will, in turn, likely contribute to the overall financial performance of the company in the near term.
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