YouTube marks 20 years with strong growth, rising revenues

This figure does not include the additional billions in revenue generated through YouTube’s subscription services, such as YouTube TV and YouTube Premium, which are not disclosed in Alphabet’s earnings reports.

Google and YouTube’s parent company, Alphabet, comfortably exceeded Wall Street estimates for Q1, reporting over 270 million paid subscriptions across its services. These figures are largely driven by YouTube and Google One, Alphabet’s consumer cloud storage platform.

Combined, YouTube Music and Premium surpassed 125 million subscribers during the quarter, further supported by the expansion of its more affordable Premium Lite tier to users in the US. Premium Lite is priced at $7.99 per month, compared to $13.99 for YouTube Premium and $10.99 for YouTube Music.

“We’re pleased with our strong first-quarter results, which reflect healthy growth and momentum across the business,” Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said. “Search continued to show robust growth, bolstered by strong engagement with features such as AI Overviews, which now attracts 1.5 billion users per month. Driven by YouTube and Google One, we surpassed 270 million paid subscriptions. Our Cloud division also saw rapid growth, reflecting strong demand for our solutions.”

YouTube’s full-year 2024 report showed estimated revenue of $54.2 billion, making it the second-largest media company behind Disney. Analysts suggest it is on track to potentially overtake Disney in 2025.

It remains to be seen whether macroeconomic uncertainty will affect YouTube’s advertising revenue in the second quarter. According to chief business officer Philipp Schindler, “It’s too early to really comment on that,” although he noted that new US tariffs will “obviously cause a slight headwind to our ads business” internationally.