According to MoffettNathanson Research, YouTube made more money than any media firm in 2025, surpassing Disney for the first time.
There are a lot of cat videos there.
Riding a years-long tsunami of user-generated videos, including millions of cat videos, YouTube surpassed even Walt Disney in income last year, earning it the title of largest media firm in the world.
According to figures provided by MoffettNathanson Research, the video-streaming service, owned by Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) (GOOGL), ranked first last year with $62.3 billion in sales, just missing Disney’s (DIS) media companies’ $60.9 billion.
According to analyst Michael Nathanson, YouTube should be able to continue expanding for the foreseeable future in contrast to many media firms that are dealing with significant changes in audience habits, difficulties brought on by artificial intelligence, and decreases in several revenue categories.In a note to clients, he said, “In a world full of business model concerns, YouTube’s global scale and innovative offerings create an uncommonly high moat, meaning the company is insulated from competition and from other factors.”
If YouTube were a stand-alone business, Nathanson estimated that it would be worth between $500 billion and $560 billion.
Alphabet stated that YouTube “exceeded $60 billion” in revenue for the year in its fourth-quarter earnings report, but it didn’t go into any detail. Disney’s theme parks and cruise lines, which pulled in $32.6 billion in its 2025 fiscal year, are not included in MoffettNathanson’s research.
In terms of audience share, YouTube had already taken the lead. With 12.5% of the total aggregated viewership among major media firms, YouTube led Nielsen’s distributor index for the eleventh consecutive month in January, surpassing Disney in February of last year.
More than half of YouTube’s viewers now watch it on television rather than just on their phones, according to Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, who made this claim during a recent congressional hearing on Netflix’s ultimately unsuccessful attempt to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD).These days, YouTube is more than simply cat videos. He refuted worries that Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros. would be anticompetitive by saying, “YouTube is TV.”
When Paramount Skydance (PSKY) made a greater offer of $110 billion, Netflix ultimately withdrew its $82.3 billion deal.
According to Nathanson’s comment, on a pro forma basis, Warner Bros. and Paramount’s combined 2025 revenue would have been the most at $66.2 billion. However, “given the vastly different growth rates between assets, that title appears to be short-lived” following their eventual merger.
YouTube’s dual-income strategy, which consists of its premium subscription platforms—YouTubeTV, YouTube Premium, and NFL Sunday Ticket—and its free, ad-supported platform, has allowed it to accomplish such rapid revenue growth.
According to MoffettNathanson, advertising on YouTube’s free platform brought in over $40 billion last year, but about a third of the company’s revenue now comes from subscription offerings.
MoffettNathanson stated that although YouTube achieved the top rank, its revenue growth actually decreased significantly from the previous year, increasing by 14% in 2025 as opposed to 19% in 2024.
Even while Netflix and Roku both experienced larger revenue growth percentages—16% and 18%, respectively—YouTube continued to lead all other media firms, with Fox coming in second with an increase of 9%.
In contrast to many of its rivals, MoffettNathanson claimed that YouTube is in a strong position to “be a major beneficiary of both the structural tailwinds and headwinds facing technology and media companies.”According to Michael Nathanson’s comment, “the ongoing development of GenAI will assist creators in producing even more impactful content that will be increasingly better targeted and better monetized by other AI tools.”
Alphabet is rated as a buy by MoffettNathanson, with a target price of $350 per share.
