Alphabet Q4: YouTube Subscriptions Surge to 325M, Drives $60B Annual Revenue

Alphabet (GOOGL) reported strong subscription and ad revenue growth in Q4. YouTube now has 325 million paying users, up from 300 million three months earlier. Ad revenue rose 9% to $11.38 billion, missing analyst estimates of $11.84 billion. Alphabet’s full-year revenue from YouTube, including subscriptions and ads, reached $60 billion, a 17% increase from the prior year. CEO Sundar Pichai announced plans to expand YouTube TV plans with over 10 genre-specific packages. YouTube Shorts averaged 200 billion daily views in the quarter, and 20 million consumers used Gemini-powered content discovery in December. Podcast viewership hit 700 million hours in October.