Guess who's world's top YouTuber? Soon it's going to be an Indian channel

T-series is close to ending PewDiePie's unbeaten run as the YouTube channel with the biggest subscriber base in the world.

T-series, an Indian music record label and film production company, is set to make a new record. This time, however, it is not for a new audio album or a film, but for its rising subscriber base on the online video sharing platform - YouTube. Founded by Gulshan Kumar in 1983, T-series came on-board the video sharing platform on May 13, 2016. 

After almost 12 years, the company is now close to becoming the most-subscribed channel on YouTube, overtaking PewDiePie – another YoutTube channel operated by Swedish YouTuber Felix Kjellberg that has been holding the top spot since 2013.

T-Series, known for its close association with Bollywood, is popular on the video sharing platform for its music videos. Unlike PewDiePie, T-series posts multiple videos every day on its YouTube channel – ranging from new releases, remixes to upcoming movie trailers. The company has also been making online-specific content such as T-series Mixtapes, which runs on a format similar to Coke Studio.

There are multiple reasons that could attribute to company’s staggering growth on the online video sharing platform. Since the beginning of this year, the music record label has amassed more than 35 million subscribers, most of which came from mobile. This shows that the country’s affordable mobile internet services, coupled with cheap smartphones’ availability have been the key factors that contributed to the company’s rising subscriber base. Another reason could be the channel’s content selection that caters to regional audiences like those in South.

In comparison, the PewDiePie channel is famous for multiple genres such as vlogs, commentary and comedy videos. The channel made a debut with its owner Felix Kjellberg, a Swedish national, reacting on camera to the scary video games. The channel joined YouTube in 2010, and within three years it became the most subscribed channel on YouTube.

To make things interesting, social analytics firm Social Blade has created a livestream to show the competition between the pair. According to SocialBlade estimates, T-series will overtake PewDiePie very soon.

Business Standard