In its first-quarter earnings report released on Wednesday, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, revealed a significant increase in paid subscriptions, adding 25 million over the past quarter. This brings the total number of paid subscriptions across Google’s services to 350 million, an increase from 325 million in Q4 2025. The growth is largely attributed to YouTube and Google One, its cloud storage and subscription service.
The earnings report did not disclose the specific number of Gemini subscribers or its monthly active users. However, it was noted that advanced Gemini features are now included with the growing Google One plans.
While no concrete numbers were provided, the data suggests that the Gemini chatbot maintains over 750 million users, consistent with the previous quarter. Google highlighted a 40% quarter-over-quarter growth in paid monthly active users for Gemini in the enterprise market, though exact figures were not given.
YouTube’s advertising revenue fell short of Wall Street’s expectations, despite showing year-over-year growth.
The push for ad-free viewing through YouTube Premium has led to a decline in ad revenue, which has raised concerns among investors. According to CNBC, Wall Street anticipated $9.99 billion in YouTube ad revenue for the quarter, but the actual figure was $9.88 billion. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai previously advised analysts to assess YouTube’s future performance based on a combination of ads and subscriptions, noting that a shift to subscription plans can negatively impact ad revenue.
In the previous year, YouTube generated over $60 billion in revenue from both ads and subscriptions, with Q4 2025 alone bringing in $11.4 billion from ads. This quarter, YouTube ad revenue reached $9.9 billion, marking an 11% year-over-year increase. However, the shortfall from analyst expectations indicates a continued shift from ad-supported viewing to ad-free subscriptions via YouTube Premium. Further insights are expected during the company’s earnings call.
Despite these challenges, Alphabet’s stock rose after exceeding Wall Street’s expectations, reporting total revenue of $109.9 billion, buoyed by strong cloud growth. Cloud revenue surpassed $20 billion.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco, CA
|
October 13-15, 2026
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
