YouTube has cemented its position as one of the world's most influential advertising platforms, generating more than $40 billion in advertising revenue and surpassing $60 billion in total revenue in 2025. However, despite its scale and expanding audience, the platform's advertising growth is beginning to slow as competition intensifies from rivals including TikTok and Netflix.
The latest WARC Media Platform Insights: YouTube report examines the platform's advertising investment, audience consumption and campaign performance, highlighting both its continued dominance and emerging challenges.
According to Alex Brownsell, Head of Content at WARC Media and lead editor of the report, “Rising consumption of video content on YouTube, and in particular on TV screens, has not yet translated into the kind of year-on-year ad revenue growth we see elsewhere in the digital ad market. YouTube has been less successful than rivals such as TikTok in its attempts to persuade marketers of its role in driving lower-funnel outcomes, hence its growing focus on winning a greater share of TV budgets.”
Advertising revenue growth eases
YouTube's global advertising revenue increased by 11.7% year-on-year to $40.4 billion in 2025, while total platform revenue, including YouTube Premium subscriptions, exceeded $60 billion for the first time.
Despite the growth, the pace of expansion is slowing. Annual advertising revenue growth declined from 14.7% in 2024 to 11.7% in 2025 and is forecast to ease further to 7.0% in 2026, reaching $43.2 billion, before rising slightly to 7.9% in 2027, when revenue is projected to hit $46.6 billion.
The report attributes the slowdown partly to YouTube's maturity as a platform but also points to increasing competition for performance advertising budgets. TikTok continues to attract marketers focused on social commerce and, at its current growth rate, could surpass YouTube's advertising revenue by 2028.
Netflix has also strengthened its position in the advertising market. Its growing ad-supported subscription tier is expected to attract increasing advertiser investment and could move ahead of YouTube over the next 18 months.
Even so, research from DoubleVerify's 2026 Global Insights, Kantar's Media Resources 2025 and WARC's Voice of the Marketer indicates that advertisers worldwide still intend to increase spending on YouTube this year, reinforcing its importance within media strategies.
Audience engagement continues to grow
YouTube now attracts almost 2.6 billion monthly users, who spend an average of 58 minutes per day on the platform in 2025, compared with 48 minutes a year earlier, reflecting stronger engagement rather than significant audience growth.
India remains YouTube's largest market with 500 million users, followed by the United States with 254 million, while Indonesia and Brazil have 151 million and 150 million users respectively.
Data from Similarweb App Intelligence shows YouTube generates more total viewing time than any other global social or video platform.
Adults aged 25-34 represent the platform's largest audience at 21.7%, followed by those aged 35-44 at 18.5%, while users aged over 65 account for 9.5%.
One of the report's most significant findings is the continued shift towards television viewing. Connected TV now accounts for 45% of total YouTube watch time in the United States, with average viewing sessions exceeding 45 minutes and completion rates of 95% or more.
YouTube Shorts also continues to reshape viewing habits, generating more than 200 billion daily views worldwide.
The report notes that monetisation of Shorts is steadily improving. In several major markets, including the United States, revenue generated per watch hour from Shorts has overtaken traditional in-stream video formats. However, sustained revenue growth will depend on advertisers adapting their creative strategies to suit short-form content.
YouTube also maintains one of the broadest content libraries across digital media, spanning music, entertainment, gaming, news, education, children's programming and podcasts.
According to Affinco data, music videos remain the platform's most-watched content. MrBeast leads YouTube by subscribers with 503 million, while T-Series remains the most-viewed channel globally with 322 billion views.
The report says YouTube's greatest strength lies in locally relevant, creator-led and interest-based content, while traditional broadcasters and subscription video platforms remain better positioned to create large-scale global cultural events.
Marketers continue to trust YouTube
For the third consecutive year, YouTube ranked as the most preferred and most trusted media brand among marketers globally, according to Kantar. It also ranks second only to Netflix for brand safety.
Advertising performance varies significantly by format. Research from Store Growers found that in-feed advertisements deliver the strongest click-through rates, typically between 1% and 3%, outperforming the all-platform average of 0.65%. By comparison, non-skippable in-stream adverts generate click-through rates below 0.3%, making them more effective for brand awareness than direct-response campaigns.
The report also identifies Generation Z as YouTube's most commercially valuable audience. It found that 51% of Gen Z males and 43% of Gen Z females made a purchase after watching an advert on YouTube Shorts, underlining the platform's growing role in driving e-commerce.
Beyond video, YouTube has overtaken Spotify for podcast viewing, with audiences watching more than 700 million hours of podcasts via connected TVs in a single month, representing a 70% year-on-year increase.
The report further highlights YouTube's growing influence in artificial intelligence, noting that it has overtaken Reddit as the leading social platform source used by large language models, creating additional visibility opportunities for brands with a strong YouTube presence.
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