YouTube's $60B revenue revealed amid paid subscriber push

Source: Hacker News

Overview

Google disclosed that YouTube generated more than $60 bn (£44 bn) in revenue for 2025, combining advertising earnings and paid subscriptions. This marks the first time Google has highlighted YouTube’s annual revenue since acquiring the platform in 2006, and the figure exceeds Netflix’s $45 bn revenue for the same period.

Midia Research senior analyst Hanna Kahlert called the announcement “perhaps not a surprising one,” noting that YouTube has become “almost infrastructural for digital natives.”

“YouTube is one of – if not the – most‑used of all digital offerings, with over 70 % of international consumers using it weekly, and over 50 % using it daily,” Kahlert told the BBC, citing Midia consumer‑survey data.

Financial Highlights

• Total 2025 revenue: $60 bn (£44 bn)
• Q4 2025 ad revenue: $11.38 bn (£8.37 bn), below Wall Street expectations.
• Paid subscriptions: YouTube Premium helped lift Google’s overall paid‑subscription base to 325 million users in 2025.

Sundar Pichai described the results as part of a “fantastic year” for Google, emphasizing the role of YouTube Premium (ad‑free video and music service) in driving subscription growth.

Subscriber & Subscription Strategy

Google has not released specific subscriber counts for YouTube, but chief business officer Philipp Schindler told investors that the platform is seeing “strong traction” in subscriptions. He highlighted:

• New, lower‑priced YouTube TV and Premium tiers
• A feature that limits background video playback on smartphones to Premium users only

Shorts Performance

YouTube’s Shorts, the TikTok‑style short‑video service, is averaging more than 200 billion daily views.

“Not just cat videos anymore”

Celebrating its 20th birthday last year, YouTube became the second‑most‑watched media service in the UK after the BBC, according to Ofcom. The regulator later reported that 94 % of UK adult internet users access the platform, with an average daily usage of 51 minutes per person.

Comparison with Netflix

YouTube’s $60 bn revenue outpaces Netflix’s, though Forrester analyst Mike Proulx cautioned that it is not an “apples‑to‑apples comparison.”

“The lion’s share of YouTube’s content is user‑generated versus ‘Hollywood’‑generated,” he said. “YouTube is TV.”

Creator Ecosystem

YouTube believes creators are essential to sustaining revenue growth. The rise of tools such as Google’s AI Overviews—AI‑generated summaries of search results—has been linked by some to reduced traffic to videos and other content. In response, the UK’s markets regulator has proposed measures giving publishers greater control over how their work appears in Google’s AI summaries and products.

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