YouTube now earns more than Disney

The entertainment industry has recorded a watershed event that certifies a transformation that is now mature.

YouTube, the video-sharing platform owned by Google, has surpassed a financial milestone of monumental proportions, definitively establishing itself as the largest media company worldwide.

In 2025, YouTube posted higher revenues than The Walt Disney Company

Recent data, released by the specialized research firm MoffettNathanson and picked up by the trade publication The Hollywood Reporter, provide a very clear picture of this dizzying ascent.

During the 2025 calendar year, the revenues generated by the streaming powerhouse reached a substantial figure of 62 billion dollars. This result allowed it to surpass the media segment revenues of The Walt Disney Company, which stood at 60.9 billion dollars (excluding the profitable Disney Experiences division).

This is proof of a business model capable of beating the historic giants of film and television production.

The gap between the different corporate entities appears even more pronounced when analyzing the overall estimated value of the corporations. Financial projections indicate that YouTube’s activities today have a valuation between 500 and 560 billion dollars.

The sector’s runner-up, namely Netflix, stands at about 409 billion dollars. This enormous economic gap certifies how a virtual space born to host short amateur videos has transformed into an unstoppable commercial empire.

Advertising and subscriptions are the engines of expansion

The roots of this success lie in a deeply articulated monetization strategy. Advertising revenues are an indispensable resource, having brought into the company’s coffers about $40 billion in total for the year, with an impressive peak of $11.4 billion recorded exclusively in the fourth quarter of 2025.

However, management has built a solid alternative based on periodic subscriptions. The subscription, which includes the Premium and Music, along with services with strong appeal to the North American audience such as YouTube TV and the broadcasting of games via the NFL Sunday Ticket, ensures stable and continuous cash flows.

All this rests on a vast network of independent creators, themselves supported by massive corporate investments in developing new AI-based technologies to facilitate video production.

Analysts’ forecasts

Medium-term projections remain very positive. Michael Nathanson, an analyst at the eponymous research firm that authored the report, has noted that the company possesses nearly unique characteristics compared with the other entities tracked by the stock market.

According to the expert, in the coming years the company will derive enormous advantage from the structural currents currently shaping the technology and media sectors, deftly navigating the challenges and fully leveraging the positive momentum of digital commerce.

The relentless expansion of its offerings and the robustness of its infrastructure secure a lead that today seems difficult to undermine.