YouTube sets a new record with $9.8 billion in ads.
As the Google-owned platform continues to dominate the streaming market and increase its presence in the television advertising space, YouTube’s advertising income increased to around $10 billion in the second quarter of 2025.
According to Alphabet, the parent company of Google, which released its quarterly financial report on Wednesday, YouTube’s ad revenue increased by 13% to $9.8 billion from $8.7 billion during the same period previous year. The number marginally above Wall Street projections, which called for quarterly revenues of about $9.6 billion.
YouTube’s increasing popularity as a preferred channel for viewers on linked TVs is reflected in the constant increase. As more viewers turn to on-demand, digital content instead of linear TV, the platform has made a concerted attempt in recent years to capitalise on traditional television ad expenditure.
YouTube continued to dominate the TV viewership category for the third consecutive month, accounting for 12.4 percent of all audience time spent watching television, according to a Nielsen analysis. With streaming services vying for ad dollars that were previously only available to broadcast networks, this trend is regarded as a major turning point.
Rival platforms like HBO Max and Amazon Prime Video have stepped up their advertising campaigns in reaction to YouTube’s success, boosting the number of ad placements across their services. In the meantime, Netflix, which has historically relied on subscriptions, is now establishing itself as a significant rival in the digital advertising market.
Although it hasn’t made exact numbers public, Netflix stated on last week’s earnings call that it intends to increase its advertising revenue within the year. Madison & Wall analysts, however, place the company’s ad income somewhere around $3 billion.
With total revenue of $96.4 billion, a 13 percent year-over-year rise, Alphabet’s overall performance also held up well in the second quarter.
YouTube’s steady expansion is seen by industry watchers as a sign of both the changing dynamics of the global advertising market and more general changes in media consumption. The competition for viewers and companies is only going to get more fierce as streaming services increasingly compete for a piece of the television advertising market.
