YouTube Premium seems to be winning its standoff against ad blockers. Google’s latest financial results show an unprecedented acceleration in the number of paying subscribers.
If you use YouTube regularly, you have probably noticed that the platform is getting tougher on ad blockers. Google’s strategy of pushing towards its subscriptions by all means seems to be producing results. The web giant has just reached a symbolic milestone when announcing its results for the first quarter of 2026.
Record growth in the number of paid subscribers for YouTube
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, proudly announced that his company gained 25 million paying subscribers in the last quarter alone. This figure includes paid services such as Google One, Gemini, YouTube Premium and YouTube Music, bringing the total to 350 million users worldwide.
Read: YouTube Premium: if you have this Google One account, you can divide your bill in half
Specifically regarding YouTube Premium and Music, the Google boss stressed that this was the strongest quarterly increase in new subscribers since the launch of the service in 2018. If we only look at YouTube’s paid services, they already had 125 million subscribersalthough this figure still includes trial periods. A dynamic that suggests that the restrictions imposed on free users are starting to weigh in the balance when choosing between paying or suffering from advertisements.
Subscriptions stronger than advertising
But the most striking information from these quarterly results is undoubtedly that shared by Philipp Schindler, Commercial Director of Google, to CNBC: the volume of revenues, as well as the growth of YouTube Premium subscribers, now surpasses that of advertising on the platform. To achieve this result, YouTube deployed an arsenal of tactics ranging from blocking ad extensions to displaying more and more ads, in order to push viewers towards paid offers.
Discover: How to watch YouTube without ads for free (and legally)?
Experiments with (interminable) 90-second advertising spots on YouTube and YouTube TV were also carried out to test the patience of non-subscribers. We will see in the next quarter whether or not the recent increase in the price of YouTube Premium in the United States (and soon in France?) could slow down this growth.
As a reminder, YouTube recently offered a “Premium Lite” subscription at €7.99 per month in France. The classic Premium subscription is €12.99, the Duo is €19.99/month and the Family subscription is €29.99/month.
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By: Opera
Source :
Android Authority
