{"id":256223,"date":"2026-04-30T19:06:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T18:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=256223"},"modified":"2026-04-30T19:14:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T18:14:55","slug":"youtube-music-and-premium-saw-largest-quarterly-increase-in-non-trial-subscribers-since-2018-launch-says-alphabet-ceo-as-platforms-ad-revenues-rose-to-9-88b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/youtube-music-and-premium-saw-largest-quarterly-increase-in-non-trial-subscribers-since-2018-launch-says-alphabet-ceo-as-platforms-ad-revenues-rose-to-9-88b\/","title":{"rendered":"In Q1, YouTube Music and Premium saw ‘largest quarterly increase’ in non-trial subscribers since 2018 launch, says Alphabet CEO, as platform’s quarterly ad revenues rose to $9.88B"},"content":{"rendered":"

YouTube<\/strong>‘s advertising revenue grew 11% YoY<\/span><\/strong> to $9.88 billion<\/strong> in Q1 2026, up from $8.93 billion<\/strong> a year earlier, according to parent company Alphabet<\/strong>‘s earnings report published on Wednesday (April 29).<\/p>\n

But on the earnings call, Alphabet<\/strong> Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler<\/strong> signaled that YouTube<\/strong>‘s subscription business is gaining ground on its ad business, noting that “YouTube subscriptions revenue continues to grow faster than ads, particularly YouTube Music and Premium.”<\/p>\n

Alphabet<\/strong> Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai<\/strong> added that YouTube Music<\/strong> and Premium<\/strong>‘s Q1 performance represented a milestone for the platform’s subscription push.<\/p>\n

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“In Q1, our YouTube Music and Premium offering saw its largest quarterly increase in the total number of non-trial subscribers, both globally and in the U.S. since YouTube Premium launched in June 2018,” Pichai<\/strong> said.<\/p>\n

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YouTube\/Google<\/figcaption><\/figure>

“In Q1, our YouTube Music and Premium offering saw its largest quarterly increase in the total number of non-trial subscribers, both globally and in the U.S. since YouTube Premium launched in June 2018.”<\/p>\n

Sundar Pichai<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Alphabet does not disclose subscriber numbers for YouTube Music and Premium separately from its broader subscription total.<\/p>\n

Across all of its services, Alphabet<\/strong> has reached a total of 350 million<\/strong> paid subscriptions. That’s up from the 325 million<\/strong> reported at the end of Q4 2025, and up by 80 million<\/strong> from the 270 million<\/strong> paying subscriptions reported in Q1 2025. Pichai<\/strong> noted that YouTube<\/strong> and Google One<\/strong> are the “key drivers.”<\/p>\n

Alphabet<\/strong>‘s “Subscriptions, Platforms and Devices” segment \u2014 which includes YouTube<\/strong> subscriptions, Google One<\/strong>, the Play Store<\/strong>, and hardware \u2014 saw revenue jump 19% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to $12.4 billion<\/strong> from $10.4 billion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi<\/strong> said this was “due to strong growth in both YouTube subscriptions, particularly in YouTube Music and Premium, and Google One subscriptions, which benefited from increased demand for AI plans.”<\/p>\n

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In March 2025, YouTube<\/strong>‘s Global Head of Music Lyor Cohen<\/strong> announced that YouTube Music and Premium had hit 125 million paid subscribers worldwide<\/a> (including trials) \u2014 up from 100 million<\/strong> in February 2024. That means the platform added around 25 million<\/strong> subscribers in 12<\/strong> months, or approximately 2 million<\/strong> per month on average.<\/p>\n

YouTube<\/strong> also recently raised its US subscription prices<\/a>, increasing the cost of an individual YouTube Premium<\/strong> plan from $13.99<\/strong> to $14.99<\/strong> per month. The price hikes took effect for new subscribers on April 10.<\/p>\n

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Overall, Alphabet<\/strong>‘s Q1 revenues rose 22% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to $109.9 billion<\/strong> from $90.2 billion<\/strong>. The company said this marks the 11th<\/strong> consecutive quarter of double-digit growth.<\/p>\n

Pichai said: “It was a terrific quarter for Alphabet\u2026 It’s clear that our AI investments and full-stack approach are driving performance across our business.”<\/p>\n

The Google Services<\/strong> division, which includes YouTube<\/strong>, reported 16% YoY<\/strong><\/span> revenue growth to $89.6 billion<\/strong>, which the company attributed to the 19% YoY<\/span><\/strong> growth in “Google Search & other,” a 19%<\/strong> increase in revenue from Google subscriptions, platforms, and devices, and the 11%<\/strong> increase in YouTube<\/strong> ads revenue.<\/p>\n

Schindler<\/strong> said the increase in YouTube<\/strong> ad revenue was driven by “direct response followed by brand.”<\/p>\n

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By the end of Q1, YouTube Premium Lite<\/strong> was fully launched in 23<\/strong> countries, and Schindler<\/strong> said YouTube<\/strong> plans to launch the lower-cost tier in more than a dozen new countries in Q2.<\/p>\n

Pichai<\/strong> noted during the call that revenue from products built on Alphabet<\/strong>‘s GenAI models grew nearly 800%<\/strong> YoY in Q1.<\/p>\n

Alphabet<\/strong> outlined new AI tools to improve advertising quality. “AI is boosting our ability to deeply understand user intent for a given Search query and to find the most relevant ad. Even when we don’t have a direct user query, we’re making significant strides in improving relevance,” Schindler<\/strong> said.<\/p>\n

Across YouTube<\/strong>, Alphabet<\/strong> has also been rolling out AI-powered changes, including the recent expansion of YouTube’s AI likeness detection tool to the wider entertainment industry<\/a>, opening access to celebrities and talent agencies for the first time.<\/p>\n

The expansion came six months after YouTube<\/strong> started rolling out the AI detection tool in October<\/a>, which was limited at the time to a specific set of creators with YouTube channels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

YouTube’s advertising revenue grew 11% YoY to $9.88 billion in Q1 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":254940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[3957,106,304],"class_list":["post-256223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-alphabet","tag-google","tag-youtube"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256223","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\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256223"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256310,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256223\/revisions\/256310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}