{"id":243673,"date":"2025-10-30T16:27:50","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T16:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=243673"},"modified":"2025-10-30T16:46:35","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T16:46:35","slug":"youtube-ad-revenues-reached-10-3b-in-q3-2025-up-15-yoy-as-shorts-now-earn-more-revenue-per-watch-hour-than-long-form-content-in-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/youtube-ad-revenues-reached-10-3b-in-q3-2025-up-15-yoy-as-shorts-now-earn-more-revenue-per-watch-hour-than-long-form-content-in-the-us\/","title":{"rendered":"YouTube ad revenues reached $10.3B in Q3 2025, up 15% YoY, as Shorts ‘now earn more revenue per watch hour’ than long-form content in the US"},"content":{"rendered":"MBW\u2019s Stat Of The Week is a series in which we highlight a data point that deserves the attention of the global music industry. Stat Of the Week is supported by\u00a0music data analytics firm\u00a0Chartmetric<\/a>.\n
\n

The growth of YouTube\u2019s ad revenues continues to accelerate, jumping 15% YoY in the third quarter.<\/p>\n

YouTube advertising brought in $10.26 billion<\/strong> in Q3 2025, Alphabet<\/strong> said in its latest earnings report. That marks the first time the number surpassed $10 billion in a third quarter.<\/p>\n

The growth was \u201cdriven by direct response advertising, followed by brand,\u201d said Anat Ashkenazi<\/strong>, CFO of Google<\/strong> and parent company Alphabet<\/strong>, on the company\u2019s Q3 investor call Wednesday (October 29).<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div> <\/div> \n

Alphabet doesn\u2019t break out subscriber numbers specifically for YouTube Music, YouTube Premium and YouTube TV, but the company\u2019s subscriptions, platforms and devices segment saw revenue jump 21% YoY<\/strong><\/span> in the quarter, to $12.9 billion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The most recent update on YouTube Music subscribers came in March, when Google reported<\/a> 125 million<\/strong> paid Music and Premium subscriptions worldwide \u2013 an increase of 150%<\/strong><\/span> since mid-2021, when it counted 50 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai<\/strong> said on the earnings call that Google\u2019s total paid subscriptions passed 300 million<\/strong> during the quarter, led by growth in cloud storage service Google One and YouTube Premium.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/a><\/i><\/a><\/a><\/figure>
Source: Alphabet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

The company\u2019s latest numbers also highlighted the growing importance of YouTube Shorts, the short video format YouTube launched in 2021 to compete with TikTok<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the US, Shorts now earn more revenue per watch hour than traditional in-stream on YouTube,\u201d Pichai said on the call.<\/p>\n

However, the company issued a caution on YouTube\u2019s ad revenues for the upcoming final quarter of this year, with Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler<\/strong> predicting that the numbers \u201cwill be negatively impacted by the strong spend on US elections in the fourth quarter of 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div> <\/div> \n

Overall, Alphabet reported earnings that blew past analysts\u2019 expectations, with total revenues passing the $100-billion mark for the first time. The company\u2019s $102.3 billion<\/strong> in revenue was up 15% YoY<\/strong><\/span> on a constant currency basis.<\/p>\n

Net income jumped 33% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to $34.98 billion<\/strong>, and earnings per share came in at $2.87<\/strong>, beating expectations of $2.33 among economists polled by LSEG, as cited by CNBC<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

A good deal of that growth was driven by AI, Pichai said. \u201cWe are seeing AI now driving real business results across the company.”<\/p>\n

At YouTube, AI is now \u201cstreamlining the entire content creation workflow from generated video tools and more efficient editing to AI-powered insights that help creators optimize their channels,\u201d Pichai added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are also using AI to expand monetization, automatically identifying products to make their videos more shoppable.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the earnings call, Schindler highlighted a fact that is well-known within the music industry \u2013 that paid subscriptions are better revenue drivers than ad-supported subscriptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn average, a YouTube Music and Premium subscriber generates a meaningful higher gross profit than if they were simply ad-supported users,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn average, a YouTube Music and Premium subscriber generates a meaningful higher gross profit than if they were simply ad-supported users.”<\/p>\n

Philipp Schindler, Alphabet<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nevertheless, Google remains committed to its strategy of monetizing YouTube via both ads and subscriptions.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, YouTube Global Head of Music Lyor Cohen<\/strong> said the platform\u2019s \u201ctwin-engine model\u201d of ads and subscriptions is \u201cfiring on all cylinders,\u201d and revealed YouTube had paid out $8 billion<\/strong> to music rightsholders<\/a> in the year from July 2024 to June 2025.<\/p>\n

That brings YouTube close to matching Spotify<\/strong> as a source of music revenue. Spotify paid out $10 billion<\/strong><\/a> in music royalties in 2024.<\/p>\n

The $8 billion payout \u201cis not an endpoint,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cIt represents meaningful, sustained progress in our journey to build a long-term home for every artist, songwriter, and publisher on the global stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
<\/a><\/i><\/a><\/figure>Chartmetric<\/a> is the all-in-one platform for artists and music industry professionals, providing comprehensive streaming, social, and audience data for everyone to create successful careers in music.<\/em><\/span><\/strong>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

YouTube Shorts ‘now earn more revenue per watch hour’ than traditional YouTube videos, the company says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":243131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4371,131343,131578,124425,304,2445],"class_list":["post-243673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-advertising","tag-paid-music-subscribers","tag-revenue","tag-stat-of-the-week","tag-youtube","tag-youtube-music"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243673"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":243690,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243673\/revisions\/243690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}