Alphabet, the parent company of Google, announced that it managed to collect 25 million paid subscribers throughout the first quarter of this year. This achievement was driven by YouTube and Google One.
With the increase in the number of customers, the total number of paid customers across the Google ecosystem now touches 350 million people. This number has increased rapidly compared to the end of last year which recorded 325 million customers.
The increase in the number of Google One customers is suspected to be getting stronger thanks to the integration of the Gemini Artificial Intelligence (AI) model. In certain packages, Google One users can access premium AI models in their data storage packages.
Even though the number of subscribers has increased, YouTube's advertising revenue is still slightly below expectations according to Wall Street analysts. This is because more users are switching to the YouTube Premium subscription package without ads.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai explained that the decline in advertising revenue was a side effect of the transition to a subscription model. The company assesses the success of YouTube must be seen from the combination of advertising revenue and monthly customer fees.
YouTube's advertising revenue in this quarter was recorded at US$9.88 billion (Rp171.5 trillion) or grew 11 percent year-on-year. However, this figure remains below the initial projection of investors at US$9.99 billion (Rp173.4 trillion).
Overall, Alphabet's financial performance still exceeded market expectations with total revenue reaching 109.9 billion US dollars (Rp1,908 trillion). The cloud services sector also showed good performance with revenue of more than 20 billion US dollars (Rp347 trillion).
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