Key Financial Data
- Q4 Total revenue: $113.8 billion (+17%)
- Q4 Operating income: $35.9 billion (+16%)
- Q4 Google services revenue: $95.9 billion (+14%)
- Q4 Google services net income: $40.1 billion (+22%)
- Q4 Search and similar revenue: $63.1 billion (+17%)
- Q4 YouTube advertising revenue: $11.4 billion (+9%)
- Q4 Subscriptions, platforms and device revenue: $13.6 billion (+17%)
- FY25 Total revenue: $402.8 billion (+15%)
- FY25 Operating income: $129 billion (+15%)
- Read more Q4 2025 media earnings coverage
Video sharing platform YouTube has spent several years trying to convince Madison Avenue that it operates a premium product akin to traditional broadcast and cable television services — and that message has resonated loud and clear.
During the last three months of 2025 (Q4), YouTube raked in $11.4 billion in advertising revenue, a 9 percent increase compared to the same time period one year earlier, as brands and retailers flocked to YouTube during the busiest shopping season.
On its own, YouTube accounted for 10 percent of parent company Alphabet’s entire Q4 earnings, which clocked in at $113.8 billion (up 18 percent) on stronger interest from consumers and brands alike in Google’s service-based offerings, cloud computing products and artificial intelligence suite.
YouTube doesn’t break out the number of people who pay for its YouTube Premium service or its YouTube TV cable-like product, which makes it difficult to know how many TV viewers — specifically, sports fans — were aggrieved by a two-week dispute involving the Walt Disney Company that saw ESPN and other channels removed from YouTube TV during Q4. The dispute was cited as a factor that hurt Disney’s sports revenue during its most-recent financial quarter.
Subscription revenue, which includes sales to YouTube Premium and purchases made within the Google Play Store, climbed to $13.6 billion during Q4, up 17 percent on a year-over basis. Google has bundled more of its premium subscription-based offerings with access to different AI-based features, including Gemini and its image generator Nano Banana Pro.
Alphabet’s stock price briefly dipped around 5 percent after the company reported a larger-than-expected forecast for capital spending based primarily on its ongoing investments in artificial intelligence.
Stock Price
“The launch of Gemini 3 was a major milestone and we have great momentum,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement. “Our first party models, like Gemini, now process over 10 billion tokens per minute via direct API use by our customers, and the Gemini App has grown to over 750 million monthly active users.”
Google Cloud, which provides data storage, computing power, and software tools to businesses, demonstrated particularly robust growth. Revenue surged 48 percent year-over-year to $17.7 billion in the fourth quarter. The cloud division has now reached an annualized revenue run rate exceeding $70 billion, meaning if it maintains its current pace, it would generate more than $70 billion in revenue over a full year.
Profitability in the cloud segment improved dramatically. Operating income more than doubled to $5.3 billion, and the division’s profit margin expanded to 30.1 percent from 17.5 percent in the prior-year quarter.
The growth was driven by increased demand for Google Cloud Platform services, particularly enterprise AI infrastructure and AI solutions that help businesses build and deploy their own artificial intelligence applications, as well as core cloud computing products, according to the company.
To support its AI ambitions, Alphabet significantly ramped up infrastructure investments, primarily in data centers and the specialized computer chips needed to train and run AI models. Capital expenditures reached $27.9 billion in the fourth quarter, nearly doubling from $14.3 billion in the same period last year. For the full year, the company spent $91.4 billion on property and equipment.
Looking ahead, Alphabet indicated it plans to maintain this aggressive investment pace. Pichai said 2026 capital expenditures are anticipated to be in the range of $175 billion to $185 billion.
“We’re seeing our AI investments and infrastructure drive revenue and growth across the board,” Pichai said. “To meet customer demand and capitalize on the growing opportunities we have ahead of us, our 2026 CapEx investments are anticipated to be in the range of $175 to $185 billion.”
