YouTube, the world’s biggest video platform, keeps eating a bigger portion of the ad-spending pie.
For the second quarter of 2025, YouTube’s advertising revenue increased 13% year over year, to reach $9.796 billion — continuing a run of impressive growth off an already large base. TV is now the biggest platform for YouTube viewing, and the streaming platform’s gains are surely at the expense of traditional networks. Analysts had expected YouTube’s Q2 ad number to come in at $9.56 billion, according to StreetAccount.
Alphabet, parent of Google and YouTube, again easily beat expectations. The company reported total revenue of $96.43 billion, up 14%, and net income of $28.2 billion (up 19%), translating to $2.31 per diluted share. Overall, Wall Street analysts on average expected Alphabet to post revenue of $94.0 billion and earnings per share of $2.18, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
“We had a standout quarter, with robust growth across the company,” Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google, said in announcing the results. “We continue to see strong performance in YouTube as well as subscriptions offerings.” He said AI is “positively impacting every part of the business” and that new Google Search features, like AI Overviews and AI Mode, are “performing well.”
Amid its ongoing investment in AI, Alphabet is increasing its capital expenditures in 2025 to approximately $85 billion, according to Pichai, up $10 billion from $75 billion previously.
YouTube — which is celebrating its 20th birthday this year — in April said it now hosts more than 20 billion videos. In the first quarter of 2025, TVs surpassed mobile to become the primary devices for YouTube viewing. At an industry conference in May, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said YouTube Shorts, its TikTok-style short-form video product that debuted in 2020, had reached parity on revenue per watch-hour relative to core YouTube in multiple countries, including the U.S.
On the earnings call Wednesday, Pichai said YouTube Shorts now sees more than 200 million daily views. He also noted that YouTube is gearing up for its first free livestreamed NFL game this September; available worldwide, the Sept. 5 Chargers vs. Chief matchup will be played in São Paulo.
Love Film & TV?
Get your daily dose of everything happening in music, film and TV in Australia and abroad.
Meanwhile, also in May, at the annual Google I/O conference, the company unveiled Flow, a new AI filmmaking tool designed for the Veo generative video model, which Google claimed provides “stunning cinematic outputs that excel at physics and realism.” The internet giant also announced a partnership with Darren Aronofsky for his new Primordial Soup AI-based creative tools venture, under which DeepMind is providing early-stage access to generative-AI video tools.
From Variety US