Subscription and advertising revenue at Alphabet-owned YouTube continued to move higher, underscoring the growing importance of paid services to Google’s overall business. On Wednesday, the company disclosed that it now has 325 million paying subscribers across Google One and YouTube Premium, up from 300 million three months earlier.
In the fourth quarter, YouTube reported that advertising revenue rose 9% to $11.38 billion. However, that figure fell short of analysts’ average expectations of $11.84 billion. Even so, YouTube’s total revenue — which includes both advertising and subscriptions — reached $60 billion for the full financial year, representing a 17% increase compared with the previous year.
The company noted that YouTube’s ad-free premium plan, priced at $8 per month, continues to gain traction, although it did not provide specific subscriber numbers. Google added that overall growth for YouTube Premium remains strong.
Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Alphabet, said the company intends to expand and refine its subscription offerings, particularly by building on the momentum of YouTube TV. “We’ll soon launch new YouTube TV plans, bringing more choice and flexibility to subscribers with over 10 genre-specific packages,” Pichai said.
YouTube Shorts averaged 200 billion daily views during the quarter, unchanged from the same period last year. Still, the company said that in some countries, advertising on short-form videos now generates more revenue per hour than traditional in-stream ads. Pichai also pointed to podcasts as an area of growing engagement, revealing that viewers watched 700 million hours of podcast content on their televisions in October.
In addition, YouTube said adoption of its artificial intelligence tools is increasing. More than 1 million channels are now using AI-powered creation features, and 20 million consumers used the company’s Gemini-based content discovery tool in December.
