Google added 25 million paid subscriptions in the first quarter of 2026, bringing its total to 350 million across its services, parent company Alphabet announced on April 29, 2026, as part of its Q1 earnings report. The figure is up from 325 million in Q4 2025, with YouTube Premium and Google One — Google’s cloud storage and subscription service — cited as the primary drivers of growth.
Advanced Gemini AI features are now bundled into Google One plans. However, Alphabet did not disclose the number of Gemini subscribers or its monthly active users, suggesting the chatbot’s user base may remain at or above the 750 million benchmark reported last quarter. Google did note a 40% quarter-over-quarter increase in paid monthly active Gemini users in the enterprise market, without providing a specific figure.
YouTube ad revenue came in at $9.88 billion for the quarter — short of the $9.99 billion Wall Street had expected, though up 11% year-over-year. The shortfall may reflect a continuing shift of viewers from ad-supported YouTube to ad-free YouTube Premium subscriptions. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai had previously cautioned analysts to evaluate YouTube’s performance using a combined view of ad and subscription revenue, noting that subscription conversions have a negative impact on ad figures.
For context, YouTube’s Q4 2025 ad revenue alone was $11.4 billion, and the platform’s total annual revenue — across both ads and subscriptions — topped $60 billion in 2025.
Despite the YouTube ad miss, Alphabet’s overall results exceeded Wall Street expectations. Total revenue reached $109.9 billion for the quarter, with cloud revenue topping $20 billion. Alphabet’s stock rose following the report.
The results suggest that Google’s subscription-based model is gaining ground, even as the shift away from ad-supported viewing continues to create tension with traditional revenue metrics.
Source: TechCrunch