YouTube Drives Google's Growth: 325 Million Subscribers and Revenues Exceeding $60 Billion
Google's subscriptions recorded significant growth during the fourth quarter of the year, driven by the strong performance of the YouTube platform, which continued to boost its revenues from both ads and subscriptions.
The Alphabet subsidiary announced that the number of paid subscribers across Google One and YouTube Premium rose to 325million users, compared to 300million just three months ago, reflecting a clear acceleration in the growth pace.
* Advertising and Subscription Revenues
YouTube ads achieved a growth rate of 9% during the fourth quarter, reaching $11.38 billion, although it fell short of analysts' average expectations of $11.84 billion.
The total revenues for the platform, which include ads and subscriptions, amounted to nearly $60 billion annually, marking a year-over-year growth of 17%.
Google confirmed that the ad-free YouTube Premium package, priced at around $8 per month, is experiencing strong demand, affirming that paid subscriptions remain one of the key growth drivers.
* Expansion of YouTube TV Packages
Alphabet's CEO, Sundar Pichai, revealed that the company plans to expand its subscription offerings, focusing on YouTube TV.
Pichai said: "We will soon launch new YouTube TV plans that offer more options and flexibility, with over 10 specialized packages based on content type."
* YouTube Shorts, Podcasts, and Artificial Intelligence
In short content, YouTube Shorts achieved an average of 200billion views daily during the quarter, a figure similar to last year, with some markets achieving higher revenue per hour of viewing compared to traditional ads in long videos.
As for podcasts, there was notable growth, with users watching about 700million hours of podcast content on televisions in October alone.
Regarding artificial intelligence, the company indicated that its AI-powered tools are very popular, with over 1 million channels using AI-supported content creation tools, while around 20million users utilized the Gemini-based content discovery tool in December.
