YouTube Just Crossed $60 Billion in 2025 Revenue and Became Bigger Than Netflix
YouTube had a monster year, and its parent company Alphabet finally put a clean number on just how massive the platform has become. For the first time ever, the company broke out YouTube’s total annual revenue, and the result is impressive.
In 2025, YouTube pulled in more than $60 billion from ads and subscriptions combined, officially making it bigger than Netflix and nearly every other entertainment company on the planet.
That figure places YouTube way ahead of Netflix, which reported $45.18 billion for the year, and behind only Disney among entertainment giants. It’s a huge milestone and one that reframes YouTube’s role from video platform to full-blown media powerhouse.
Alphabet had plenty to celebrate across the board. In the fourth quarter alone, Alphabet reported $113.8 billion in revenue, up 18% year over year, with net income jumping 30% to $34.5 billion. Earnings came in well above Wall Street expectations, reinforcing the idea that Google’s ecosystem is firing on all cylinders.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai highlighted just how important subscriptions have become to the business. In prepared remarks, he said the company now has more than 325 million paid subscriptions across its consumer services, including YouTube Premium, YouTube TV, and Google One. That recurring revenue base is a big reason YouTube can stand shoulder to shoulder with traditional streamers.
Advertising is still a massive piece of the puzzle. In the final three months of 2025, YouTube generated $11.38 billion in global ad revenue, an 8.7 percent increase from the previous year.
The number came in slightly below analyst forecasts of $11.84 billion, and brand advertising took a hit due to lower political ad spending compared to Q4 2024. Even so, it marked YouTube’s biggest ad quarter ever.
Sports and long-form viewing continue to fuel growth. Pichai revealed that the NFL reached its highest paid-subscriber total yet for the Sunday Ticket package on YouTube, though he didn’t share exact numbers.
Podcast consumption is also exploding. In October 2025 alone, viewers watched more than 700 million hours of podcasts on YouTube via TVs, a staggering 70 percent increase year over year.
Alphabet is leaning hard into artificial intelligence as the engine behind its next phase. Pichai said the company’s AI investments and infrastructure are “drive revenue and growth across the board,” and added that Alphabet expects to spend between $175 billion and $185 billion in capital expenses in 2026. That would be nearly double its 2025 spending, a clear sign the company is going all-in.
Content deals are also reshaping YouTube’s future. During the quarter, YouTube secured exclusive global rights to the Oscars starting in 2029 through 2033, taking the broadcast away from ABC in a major industry shift.
Around the same time, the BBC announced a partnership with YouTube to produce original content and launch new channels aimed at kids and young adults.
On the creator side, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan outlined the platform’s priorities for 2026 in his annual letter. He said more than one million channels were using YouTube’s AI tools daily as of December 2025. He also acknowledged growing concerns around what he called “AI slop,” noting that YouTube is actively working on “reducing the spread of low-quality, repetitive content.”
Short-form video is still operating on a ridiculous scale. YouTube Shorts now averages 200 billion daily views, and the company plans to blend more formats, including image posts, directly into the Shorts feed this year.
Meanwhile, YouTube TV is gearing up to launch a fully customizable multiview feature and roll out at least ten lower-cost, genre-specific channel plans focused on sports, entertainment, and news.
When you stack it all together, the takeaway is clear. YouTube isn’t just competing with Hollywood and streaming services anymore. It’s outgrowing them. Crossing $60 billion in annual revenue cements YouTube as one of the most powerful entertainment platforms ever built, and it doesn’t look like it’s slowing down anytime soon.