Subscription fees and advertising revenue for YouTube, owned by Alphabet, are increasing. On Wednesday, the company said it now has 325 million paying users for Google One and YouTube Premium, up from 300 million three months ago.
YouTube reported fourth-quarter advertising revenue rose 9% to $11.38 billion, but fell short of analysts’ average estimate of $11.84 billion. YouTube’s total revenue, including advertising and subscriptions, was $60 billion for the full fiscal year, up 17% from the previous year.
The company said YouTube’s $8-a-month ad-free premium service is receiving great response, but did not provide specific figures. He added that YouTube Premium also showed strong growth.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said the company plans to flesh out its subscription service specifically to capitalize on YouTube TV’s growing user base. “We will soon be launching new YouTube TV plans to give our subscribers more choice and flexibility with more than 10 genre-specific packages,” he said.
YouTube Shorts averaged 200 billion views per day this quarter, the same as last year, but in some countries, short video ads generate more revenue than in-stream ads on an hourly basis, the company said. Pichai also highlighted podcasts as a growing format, with viewers watching 700 million hours of podcasts on TV in October.
YouTube says its AI features are growing in popularity, with more than 1 million channels using its AI creation tools. The company said in December that 20 million consumers used its Gemini-powered content discovery tool.
